To be a bit upset and hurt by my NCT friend?

[lelapaletute]

I went to NCT before having baby and really hit it off with the 7 ladies in my group. One in particular I thought was really cool, the sort of person I'd be friends with "in real life" as opposed to the weird twilight mummy world!

We have a WhatsApp group where we all share our highs and lows, ideas, discoveries etc. A couple of the ladies kind of drifted off but most of us are chatting daily. I always felt a bit out of things as I live in a less nice bit of town than the rest of them (no NCT in my area) so they'd often meet ad hoc and I'd miss our, they go to the same children's centre/clinic etc and I go to my local one. But in the early days especially it was such a lifeline and I really felt close to them all.

As our babies have got older, the issues we have are different - most people have gone either in part or totally onto formula (I still EBF, as does this one particular "cool" lady), babies are doing really different things with sleep, mobility etc. My baby is crawling and pulling up at 7 months, but her sleep is awful, bf is a struggle and she is often very weepy and cross. I've just started trying to get her in her own room - up until now she's been co-sleeping.

Anyway off the back of a discussion on the WhatsApp about this with lots of different advice about how to help her sleep, the cool lady got in touch with me privately and basically said that I need to stop expressing my concerns about my daughter on the WhatsApp group, as because baby is advanced physically this is "humble-brag", and is making members of the group "who have had it really tough" worried about their own little ones' development (even though the concerns I have expressed are nothing to do with her crawling etc, I know that is really unusual and great and that babies develop in different aspects at different rates!).

She also said in the context of my concerns about my baby's low mood the only reason her own little girl is so happy (she is, famously, the jolliest baby ever, will go to anyone, smiles all the time, almost never cries) is because she, cool friend, only ever shows her happiness and love - the implication being that it's my fault my daughter is so often grumpy and that it's because I don't show her enough love! 😢

I am so hurt by this. I have been so open with these virtual strangers because I really believed we cared about each other and were all in it together. Now I feel mortified that I have apparently upset people, and so gutted people think I am trying to back-handedly show off (I am really not like that), and actually really angry she has seen fit to tell me I'm not loving towards my baby when I spend 24 knackered hours a day showering her with love, attention and approval (and before anyone asks I have written this epic post while she takes an epic nap - I am typing with one hand and holding her hand with the other to help her sleep as she had a really bad night's sleep).

Am I being silly to be so hurt by someone I thought was a friend, and feel grief that now I can't really talk to the group about how things are going? I mean is it normal to feel like your NCT group are real friends, not just a sort of functional grouping to have people to go to mum and baby things with and keep it light hearted? am I being a wuss?

For full info I have no family nearby and none of my pre-baby friends have children so I do feel generally isolated.... This may be why I have overshared/am overreacting...

She doesn't like that your baby crawled first. That's the bottom line.

With my first, I lived in an area with a very high numbers of young families - a nappy valley type place. Lots of baby groups, v middle class. And oh, the competitive mothering that went on. Proper wars broke out over whose baby had done what first. I found the whole thing alternately exasperating and amusing. (my DS1 walked first - I know how you feel....)

If her baby had crawled first, she'd still be your friend. I guarantee it.

LOVE the 'lol' idea. laugh out loud, lots of love, slightly undecipherable thread ender. SO using that.

Find something else to focus on rather than daily messages about baby stuff.

Bloody dull

I'd ignore her and not reply and keep doing what you're doing, nasty piece of work!

Paste her message and let them no you are mortified and it was totally not your intention to brag or upset anyone. I'll bet the others no nothing of what she's said and will be horrified.

Yup, I'd recommend this too. I've got a raving loon in one of my antenatal groups and this is the only approach that works.

FWIW, I'm part of an nct group and while it's still very early days I'm finding it very supportive, not competitive and hugely helpful. The course itself was near-useless but my group is lovely. I did end up with a group from the area next to my naice area, but god knows whether that makes a difference. I'd love to be a fly on the wall at NCT Chelsea and find out .

Ha! What a bitch.

I'd reply thus:

'Ok, thanks for the suggestion - good point - I'll let the others know what you've said (in private of course!) so that I can check that I'm not bothering them all too much. That's kind of you! Don't worry about your DD - I'm sure she'll develop more with her likes and dislikes soon, they all do everything at such different rates! Cheers, see you soon'

She will be FUMING and also crap herself that her bitchy little Wendy-ing is to be exposed. Ahahahahaha

She's a manipulative patronising cow. Why not pull up the curtain on her little backstage drama? I bet she's digging at everyone behind the scenes. Copy it to the group and tell them you're sorry they feel that way. Quickest way to get her closed down.

I think the friend is jealous of you.

I was involved in an NCT group. For the first year, it was lovely. It all went to shit and splintered. I left the group on social media and you would have thought I had murdered them all, the way they carried on!
I went NC will all but one of them and 5 years down the line, I don't regret my decision.

"Thanks for letting me know." No apology, no indication that you'll act on her unsolicited advice/opinion, give her nothing. Do not second guess yourself and change anything about your posting style but do look towards slowly disengaging yourself from this group - I think it sounds like it's run its course anyway - as you broaden your horizons and move into real life interactions with other baby/parent groups,
And move on.
Really not worth giving her any more headspace, she has her own insecurities, finds you a threat and clearly doesn't recognise the irony of telling you off for 'humble-bragging' while doing a not-so-humble-brag about her fabulous happiness and love-showering parenting style.

every baby group I went to seemed to be ruled by 'the NCT group' and was basically impossible to make friends as they went around like a pack

I found this at first too. My DD also found it hard to befriend daughters of NCT buddies at her school as they arrived as BFFs and only want to play with each other. Which was great for them... (Their loss, my DD is fab).

Send back "Haha! Well there's certainly nothing humble about your bragging! 😁😁"

Love Fizzy and Rockin's suggestions.

Aw you're all so lovely to take the time to reply to me xxx it makes me feel better that others agree it was not a nice thing to do.

I really don't think she's a bitch at all though.... She is ever so lovely, funny, randomly gives people spare baby stuff at the drop of a hat... She does rather pride herself on being upfront I think, so if she's saying it either this is how the others feel, it it's how she thinks they feel and "if she doesn't say it, no-one will" kind of thing...

I already replied at the time saying I appreciated her taking the time to share her experience with me and that I had never wanted to upset anyone... She replied with something to the effect that it's hard for us all to see outside our own bubble sometimes. I haven't replied to that as I am just too upset with her really and can't think what I could say that wouldn't be either stroppy or disingenuous. Haven't posted on the main group either, but it's gone a bit quiet last day or do anyway...

I am way too much of a wimp to paste into the main group or anything like that I think I'll just let it go and hold my peace until anyone asks after me/my daughter. It's possible I have come across braggy unintentionally, but I really have been a bit blindsided by all this crawling lark - it's hard work! - maybe it came across wrong. I guess I'm used to being the one whose bab is a bit of an object of collective concern - feeding trouble, sleeping trouble, always throwing an epic wobbler at group meet ups while other babies sit and gurgle cutely - I may have not realised that being a bit about her new skills, or continuing to fret about her bad mood in spite of a them, may have seemed humble-braggy?

I think I'll just pull on my big girl pants and walk away really - sad though. I've moved to a new city this week so I guess I needed to find a new circle of friends anyway - just thought I could keep this one too! Hey ho.

Thanks all again for the support and suggestions, really helped xxx

Your last post makes me wonder whether it was all OK while you were to be pitied, or made everyone else feel relatively lucky by comparison, or at least by bitch-face-cool-really-lady, but now you have something positive (in her eyes), you're not playing the game.

That's how it seems to me.

Perfect timing, moving to a new city - make the most of it!

She's not your friend OP. Friends don't chastise other friends on private message outside an already well-established What's App group.

She may be cool and on your wavelength - but take this bellendery as a warning shot. She thinks it's ok to basically tell you off for being "out of bounds". Why does she think that's ok? Has she been chatting to others in the group privately who've been complaining about you?

The relationships we make as FTMs is a subject v close to my heart. It's astonishing what we let ourselves take lying down as we are usually to fragile to realise when the piss is being taken out of us.

Don't do any more than you already have and value yourself. It's ok to be factual about baby, whether good or bad. You'll always come across bitter and twisted folks who will try and pull you down because they have their own agenda: it's nothing you've done.

Argh! Folk like this make me channel my inner Nicki Minaj...

Get rid of the lot of them OP and don't look back.

Hmmm sounds like she's a very competitive person and probably (secretively!) wanted her baby to be the first to do everything. She's disguising her displeasure and spitefulness as 'advice' but it really isn't.

I did the NCT thing, tbh it's all great and regular catch ups, meet up's etc until around nine months when everyone starts returning to work and their normal real lives and then suddenly everyone drifts away and we all lost contact.

Look for some other baby groups or classes.

Maybe she's the one who needs to look outside her own Lady Bountiful bubble, sorry, but that gratuitous second put-down of a pm has made my jaw drop. That doesn't suggest to me that she is a genuinely nice and kind person - just likes to give the impression of being so. The oh so funny, cool, life and soul of the party persona is nothing more than a cover for the fact she's actually a controlling, bossy, smug bully. As a pp said, as long as you stay in your place as an object of pity she can be seen to patronise help it's all gravy but god forbid you dare step out of the charity girl role she's imposed on you.
Tl;dr version - she's a grade A Cunt.

If you are going to leave the group anyway, I'd post the screenshots first. She's not speaking for the rest of them.

(she is, famously, the jolliest baby ever, will go to anyone, smiles all the time, almost never cries)

from the little I recall of the child psychology I did in my A level (sometime before The Flood, so may be outdated). Excessively cheerful children who are happy to approach alone for interacting, and who rarely if ever cry, are most often children who have been neglected, have not formed a bond with caregivers, and are desperate for human contact but are sadly aware that crying just gets ignored soothed learn not to bother.

Let your "friend" put that in her pipe and smoke t!

*anyone, not alone

*so have, not soothed

FFS! Autocorrect!!!

You sound so positive and lovely screw them and what they say about you. All my kids are different and I love them all the same. They don't know you and they don't deserve to know you.

The great thing about being a parent is that if you ever do get to a point of feeling smug about something about your dcs, WITHOUT FAIL, you will end up having a humiliating come-uppance. It may not be immediately, but soon, very soon, you will have to eat your smugness in front of everyone you know.

Rest assured that your d"f"s dc will not always be happy and delightful. Terrible twos await everyone....