to wonder if NCT is a bit too posh for me?

[anyname123]

Hia, first pregnancy, I'm 34 and relocated to live with partner about a year ago. I have made a few mates in new city, but none have children. I'm due in October and just considering NCT as a way to meet women to hang out with on Mat leave. Whilst I'm hardly a scumbag I'm not very organic and middle class either, wondering if anyone happy to share their experience of NCT, will it be full of the brown rice brigade and a waste of a few hundred quid, or is it a good way to meet others in same position? Thanks in advance.

I've signed up to do them for the same reasons as you have talked about. I'm soooooo far removed from an Earth Mother! I just figure if everyone else is 'organic' etc., they'll be too busy getting used to their babies to worry about me and we'll all just be looking for support and friendship. I personally don't think there's anything to lose and will go in with an open mind and positive attitude. Good luck! :) Xxx

I didn't join NCT as I'm a midwife and thought it would be weird, but after my DS was born I joined a (totally unlike me) Steiner baby group and although I'm not BF and I'm the only non co-sleeper we all get on brilliantly, partly because we are all so different. In fact one of the mum's said she talks to us more than her NCT friends (8 months on). She found NCT post baby groups really competitive as the babes were more or less the same age- our group is birth to walking so there's always someone with a little one and someone with a crawler.

I went to NCT classes with DW almost exactly ten years ago. It was very middle class - I think half the attendees were lawyers. We stayed in contact a bit after the babies were born but we haven't been in contact with any of them for several years now. I found the classes helpful, but didn't make lasting friends there.

I thought the classes themselves were pretty pointless, but 18 months after our babies were born, we're all still in touch, even though two of us have moved out of the area. Some of us rent, some were renting and now have bought, some were crunchy, some breastfed, some co-slept, no judgement at all by any of us.

We only paid £180, that was the going rate in our area.

I must admit, I find my non-nct "mummy friends" more comforting when I'm worrying about DS's development (DS has some health issues) because there's an element of competitiveness about our nct group at times. Or maybe boastfulness is more accurate.

No snobbery about saying you feel out of place with certain groups of people.

Of course there is.

I've just finished my class and I'm not posh or middle class.
The other couples all introduced themselves at the start of the classes and said what jobs they did etc. I did feel slightly out of my depth with them all immediately after and they were all mainly 8/10 years older than me. However now I've come to the end of the classes I'm really glad that I've done it, and I feel guilty for judging them when I first met them and assuming we wouldn't have anything in common.

We were all nervous about nct it turns out (each couple for different reasons) but by the end I really feel like I've made some good friends who I can turn to for support, which is the main reason most people seem to do the classes!

I didn't do NCT cos I was worried the leader would be all hippy Earth Mother type and I'm not. Instead I went to an independent antenatal company in another part of London (and so didn't make friends that I kept).

From what my friends tell me, quite a few of the NCT leaders are hippy Earth Mother types, but you get over that and the other women are nice and lots of my mates have made local friends through it.

I guess I was one of the posher and more earth-mothery mums in our group so maybe I would say this, but I thought the course content and group make-up was very well balanced! Six couples. Age range was 27 to 42, baby delivery dates were spread over 2 months. There were a couple of c-sections, a couple of inductions and a couple of standard deliveries. I think 2 breastfed and 4 formula fed. Fairly different approaches to parenting. The course covered everything except formula feeding - I think to do so may be against NCT policy?

It was a great support network for the first year but our group splintered once people started returning to work. 3 years on, we're mostly still in touch and meet up individually or in smaller groups. I don't think the dads are in touch.

I was doing antenatal yoga and read a lot so knew almost everything we were 'taught', but the network was invaluable. I have a few friends who didn't do NCT and found the groups at baby classes impenetrable for the first year because so many groups sign up for classes together.

If you can afford to, give it a go. Here in commuterville I think professionals who work long hours tend to favour the more condensed courses (especially weekends), so you may get more of a mix of backgrounds like I did if you choose a course spread over several weeks.

I did two lots of ante-natal classes when pregnant with DC1, both hospital ones and NCT group. They were both good if slightly different but really came into their own for meet-ups once we all had our babies. I also joined a post-natal group at local health centre. All three groups of Mum were great to meet up with over that summer with our babies - made all the difference in the world.
The preparation for birth, and opportunity to do this with DP, was all really helpful too.

I did NCT (North Somerset) and found the classes interesting but absolutely no info on medicalised births. I also went to the local NHS classes which were abysmal by comparison, mostly full of very young disinterested mums to be and only provided very basic information that you could pick up from a bi-fold leaflet.

However, 5 of us in the NCT group had boys and we all got on brilliantly and are still in touch 7 years later even though I've moved country. I was the oldest in the group in my forties but the majority were in their early thirties. Yes, the mum's I'm friends with are all well educated but not particularly well off. I formula fed and I'm not remotely an earth mother type but we were hugely supportive of each other, which was the best part of the whole experience.
I did try a post natal NCT class which had practical elements to it but I didn't gel with anyone on that course at all.
If you want to try making new friends, then try everything gong as hopefully, you'll find your tribe.

Here here

"The course covered everything except formula feeding - I think to do so may be against NCT policy?"

Our teacher told us she couldn't teach about formula feeding unless we asked her to, so I made sure that I did ask her to and she went over how to make bottles safely (formula into hot water rather than cooled boiled water etc).

They seem to have a whole section on their website about bottle feeding too:

www.nct.org.uk/parenting/bottle-feeding-your-baby

I really value the friendships we made at nct. Little one is two and I still see two of the girls at least once a fortnight, and the while group every few months. We chat on our own Facebook page too. We were probably the poorest in our group but no one was snotty about it. Normal lovely people.

the course was full of young disinterested mums to be
That sentence confirms the us and them attitudes to young Mums and I was treated like dirt for being a teenage Mum at an NCT class.

OP I went to an NCT group in the town I was moving to, and like others have said, found it to be a very good thing, especially in the early days. Once my oh went back to work it could have been really isolating, but having a weekly commitment (lunch / coffee) gave me at least one spot a week where I had adult conversation. I found another baby group because one of the group arranged for us to all have a taster. We met regularly and began to do quarterly parties when we all went back to work (Christmas, Easter, summer BBQ and Halloween). 4yrs on 6 of the 7 are in regular contact. The 7th lived a 30min drive away and eventually moved counties. We catch up for ad hoc nights out too.

I would say after around 9mths you naturally found that the group splintered a bit and we stopped relying on each other but still useful to have.

To add, I suppose the group was middle class and white, but that represents the town I live in. We were not / are not yummy mummy types. Two grew up on council estates, two were students at the time. Money wise we aren't a rich bunch but we are t struggling either.

I tried the NHS classes too and a sure start class post natal. Sure start was very informative but the women in my group all had children older than mine and we didn't click. NHS was dreadful. NCT is very much what you make it imo.

I didn't do NCT and did regret it a bit as I'd always see NCT groups hanging about together as a clic at groups and coffee shopshop when on mat leave.

However I did the ante natal classes at the local hospital. I made some lovely friends their and nearly 3 years later still really good friends with a couple of then. That and going to bumps and babe's group at the local sure start centre in the weeks after DS was born I got meet some lovely like minded ladies who I see a lot still. We were mainly in the same boat - and had a lot in common; couldn't justify spending several hundred pounds on NCT when hospital classes were free, but wanting to meet other mums.

I had a great NCT experience. We had a mixed group, DH and I were the youngest at 30 (SW London). We had just bought our first flat, some of the others had huge £million+ homes. One lady and her DH were locals, born and bred in the area that suddenly everyone wanted to move to, and were real salt of the earth types. Not posh at all. We weren't from the local area. We also had a Canadian couple. No one seemed to judge anyone's choices and we are all still friends, despite being scattered across the country/world now.

P.S. I think one of the nice things about Nct is meeting people you'd never otherwise meet, it definitely shook up my preconceptions and also helped me chill out a bit because everyone did things differently and all our babies survived :). Sometimes meeting people you don't have a lot in common with is a good thing. My closest pregnant friend outside nct turned into a neurotic crunchy after giving birth, and it was great to have a breath of fresh air from her judgemental attitude!

I did t think it was too posh but I did think it was a waste of money. It didn't tell me anything I didn't know already and meet ups always made me feel wretched as all the other mums were coping so much better than me! We still meet up v occasionally (Dcs are now 2.5) but haven't become close friends.

Oh and being new to the area, I found the group's local knowledge invaluable. Quick group message and I would find the nearest late night chemist, place for Sunday lunch, a hairdresser, good takeaway curry etc. It would have taken me much longer to settle into my town without their help.

Our eldest DS's are now 23 and we're still in touch, although spread out around the country!

I did NCT thinking I would make friends for life. I later volunteered for the organisation but I do feel a bit daft thinking about how high my hopes were regarding meeting like minded mums. Even if you have similar family and professional backgrounds, it's always the luck of the draw.

I was involved in two different groups during my first pregnancy. One was local mums I met up with for coffee, the other was the birth classes in a Zone 2 area of London. In my local classes, I happened to be the only mum going back to work and in fact the only one who'd had a 'front office' job, so to speak. I definitely felt like the odd one out because I was planning to go back to work and not have number two quite quickly.

The London Zone 2 one couldn't have been more different; one of the women from that group is CFO of a FTSE company!

I am not good friends with anyone from either group TBH. (It's clearly me .)

I meant to add that the bumps and babies groups and things like volunteering for the nearly new sale/other things seemed to draw a wider circle of people. So, even if you don't do any classes, i would give the coffee groups that aren't linked to a specific birth class a try.

There were 7 couples in our group. 5 of us have forged a rock solid friendship. The other 2 hung about with us until they went back to work and we've not seen much of them since. Just didn't gel, I guess. They have very different thoughts on parenting (one formula fed because she "deserved lots of wine every night because she hadn't drunk any for 9 months" and the other locked her toddler in her room to stop her from coming out in the night. ). Not really a loss to the rest of us!

We had a police officer, a teacher, two psychological therapists, a call centre employee and an IT worker in our group. A mix of ages and backgrounds.