To ditch NCT?

[Hollyhop17]

I had my pfb 11 weeks ago. We are pretty isolated where we live, no family close by, so I did NCT to get some mum friends close by.

There are 8 of us and I am the only one who had a section and the only one who isn't bfing anymore. In general they are quite rude/insensitive as all they talk about is either bfings or their labour stories which obviously I can't join in.

My section was due to a breech and I tried really hard for 3 weeks to bf but I couldnt. After hyperemesis I just didn't have the mental capacity to carry on.

The final straw has come today. Ive got a bad cold and asked if anyone else had been ill since giving birth and if they had any tips for avoiding passing it on. The immediate, smug, response I got was 'breastfes babies dont get ill'. Making me feel guilty all over again.

I am deaperate for local friends so dont want to cut my nose off to spite my face but this group just generally make me feel bad about myself.

AIBU to take a step back from the group?

My breastfed baby caught his brother's chicken pox at about 5 months!

As for NCT groups on my experience it's a total gamble whether you will gel with the group. I was lucky in that I've made two very close friends from my group but equally have friends who've had a similar experience to you OP.

In the kindest possible way - and while acknowledging the ridiculousness and downright inaccuracy of a sweeping statement like 'bf babies don't get ill' - I think possibly your own feelings about how your birth and bf went are colouring your perceptions a bit. Bf is all-consuming, especially at this stage, and it's not always the kind of thing people feel comfortable talking about with a more general audience (iyswim). And the labour stories thing is a way of processing it. Not all birth is traumatic, but pretty much all birth is a shock to the system and a very intense experience (and by 'birth' I mean CS just as much as VB) and I've found myself repeating the story of my births, which were difficult in different ways but non-traumatic, as a way of low-level working through it. Have you talked about your birth with them, and how have they responsded?

Just to give you pause before any dramatic act of cutting off contact which may deprive you of good mates further down the line. If they are actually mean and exclusive, then good riddance and their loss, but this is a time when emotions and self-absorption are running high generally, and it may not be accurate to judge them on the things you have mentioned.

I think possibly your own feelings about how your birth and bf went are colouring your perceptions a bit

Sorry to jump on you Hetero but no; with respect that's a cop-out.

These women haven't the right to make judgements on one one person in their group who's done it "differently". I can see your point and in some cases it may be valid but from what the OP has said she's been simply judged.

Saying she's projecting is absolving the others of being judgy and making ridiculous sweeping statements designed to do nothing but make the OP feel shitter than she already does.

My nct group was great. Out of 6, 2 dropped out but the remaining 4 of us have stayed great friends 11 years later.

NCT isn't to blame, those parents just sound like dicks.

Sorry it's been that way. You will meet other more friendly and enlightened parents. It's just about getting out and about a bit.

And they're wrong BF babies DO get sick. It will be a shock to them I guess and hopefully wipe their smugness away.

Good luck

As others have said, life is too short to spend it with people that make you feel bad.

Ditch them and use the energy you spend worrying about their comments to find nice new friendships.

'These women haven't the right to make judgements on one one person in their group who's done it "differently". I can see your point and in some cases it may be valid but from what the OP has said she's been simply judged.

Saying she's projecting is absolving the others of being judgy and making ridiculous sweeping statements designed to do nothing but make the OP feel shitter than she already does.'

You see, I don't necessarily read judginess there - a bit of thoughtlessness/silliness with the 'bf babies don't get ill' comment, yes. I think OP is feeling judged because she (entirely unnecessarily) judges herself a bit, or is worried others will judge her.

I really think most women 12 weeks post-natal have other things on their minds than concerted judging and exclusion. And because what they have on their minds is themselves and their babies, and their experience, that is what their conversation revolves around. Because the OP's experience is a bit different from that of most of these women, she feels excluded. Which isn't an unreasonable response, because OP is entitled to her feelings, but I think jumping to 'dump them, the bitches' is not necessarily called for. NB not saying this because she's supposed to sit there admiringly listening to these women and not talk about her own experience - far from it -, but because it would be a shame in the long run to lose people who might be good company or even good friends when this very intense and, yes, quite fraught phase has passed and it all goes into perspective.

Sorry for third person, OP.

Thanks for your comments. I understand what you're saying Hetero but I don't think I want to be friends with the type of people who think this behaviour is ok, week in, week out (we have a brunch every week plus chat on whatsapp everyday).

I may be projecting my own disappointment that bfing didnt work or that I had to have a section (I think there is nothing wrong with a section, but due to my severe HG I wont be pregnant again so feel 'robbed' for want of a better word, of the experience of going into labour etc. but there are genuinely other things I thought we would talk about.

Perhaps I have been too hasty and they would have workee out to be nicer people than they seem. But I am also in the new mum phase and feeling bad about myself is a feeling I dont need on top of everything else. I'd like supportive mum friends whose conversation extends beyond feeding and giving birth, two months down the line.

Perhaps I am niave and this is what everyone else talks about at this stage..

really think most women 12 weeks post-natal have other things on their minds than concerted judging and exclusion

Not sure. I'm in an NCT group; DD is two weeks, others are between a week and a month old. Lots of different births and feeding situations. Topics on WhatsApp recently include plans for a meetup, a whinge about someone's husband, congratulations to one on release from hospital after a rough ride, congratulations to another on getting back to birth weight, random photos, chat about good box sets... ok it's still baby-focused, but not exclusively, and the overall tone is supportive.

(In other words I think OP just landed a dud group)

You aren't being naive. It sounds like my idea of hell.

Don't force yourself to be friends with people you wouldn't otherwise get along with just because you have babies in common.

They'll soon discover now summer is over that their bf babies get colds just the same and bottle fed. Find other friends. Life is too short

As someone who also suffered from severe HG I think you are frankly amazing for even giving bfing a try. I don't think it is possible for someone who hasn't experienced it to understand how completely physically and mentally depleted you are by the end of your pregnancy and then you have to go through the birth and caring for a newborn on top of that. You aren't starting from the same place, you are already exhausted before you've even got going. HG is also a significant risk factor for developing PND so the last thing you need is to be surrounded by people who make you feel bad about yourself.

It is all very well those saying that these women are understandably going to want to talk about their experiences, but they sound extremely unkind and dismissive about the OP's experience just when she needs a bit of support.

Sorry you also went through HG Stich. It's bloody awful, exactly as you described. I had it the whole time so felt pretty depleated once I had my LO.

It's hard because unless you've had it, you can't understand how badly it affects you. Not their fault obviuosly but some empathy wouldn't go amiss. They all witnessed me being sick during our classes.

On a practical note I wonder whether NCT could try and match those with difficult pregnancies together? Probably a lot of hassle, but might have improved my experience.

'all they talk about is either bfings or their labour stories '

Bloody hell

Run like the wind how utterly dull

OP, if you feel like they're not your kind of people then absolutely, walk away and have a look around for the kind of people who are. :)

(IMO and E 2 months is massively early days but I take your point about the one-sidedness of conversation).

FWIW, re feeling robbed, my three vaginal births don't even figure in my list of 50 top moments of my life. Two were instrumental and therefore far from the candles-and-whale-music ideal, one was a frustrating induction followed by a supersonic-speed second stage that left the doctor in shock, never mind me. But the babies, lots and lots of top moments with those. :)

The question is: do you actually like any of them? Is there even one person there that you can imagine being friends with? If you didn't have the fact of being new mothers in common, are any of them people you would voluntarily spend your time with?

If the answer is No, then leave the group and move on. You don't need to make life miserable for yourself by spending time with a bunch of judgemental people you don't even like. There are other ways of making friends (baby music groups, swimming, play groups, that kind of thing).

My breastfed DT got ill and my friends formula fed baby didn't

It's not a competition. You are doing your best. Get away from these middle class hags and find some real friends.

Hack mum, there were a few who I thought were nice and I could see us being friends outside of our due dates. But these past few weeks even they have been a bit insensitive. There is a clique of 3 and the others increasingly seem to desperately want to be a part of that.

The first one who piped up with the 'breastfed babies dont get ill' comment was actually someone who not only I thought was nice but someone who I had supported early on as she had a difficult birth but hadnt told us and disappeared from the group chat. I reached out to her on her own and felt like I was being a good support, she seemed appreciative when we had our reunion a few weeks ago.

So in general it feels like I try and put a lot of effort in and don't really get much back. Perhaps they just don't like me!

I avoided NCT/antenatal classes like the plague, they were all very much geared towards vaginal birth and I knew very early on that due to previous birth trauma I would most definitely be having an elective section. I didn't want to talk about waters breaking and stages of labour because it was very distressing to me.

Despite this some people, who I actively couldn't avoid and knew what had happened would come out with 'helpful' little quips like 'oh baby may have other ideas' and 'it's major surgery you know' (I still get that now, 10 months down the line, like I don't know ). It was emotionally exhausting having people who are supposed to care about you, tell you that something you were terrified of could happen to you anyway. Like it was helpful.

I would ditch them, you don't need it. Your c section is your birth story and it is just as valid as vaginal birth, don't let anyone tell you otherwise. And formula is not poison as some would have it. I tried to breastfeed, I did but the birth of my daughter was the culmination of being pregnant for the best part of two years, I'd buried one daughter and undergone surgery to ensure the safe arrival of the second, something had to give or I would of snapped, so I gave her a bottle. And she's fine. Completely fine. Try local classes or maybe Facebook groups.

Sorry to hear that Dead, sounds very traumatic. I get you on the section. No one in real life thankfully comments about it to me, just the nct bubble.

I am definitely moving on. Got baby sensory, two mum 'dates' planned and just got a call back from my local childrens centre about a 3 week baby massage class (which is free!) starting next week. Surely, I will meet someone lovely amongst all those

'There is a clique of 3 and the others increasingly seem to desperately want to be a part of that.'

This sounds very familiar!! Think it's v common with nct.

Going against the grain a bit here, but I would stick with it. It's really, really early days and their heads are probably just full of the trauma of birth and how hard breastfeeding is. It's incredibly difficult, (as you know!) and they probably just need a space where they can get some help. Early motherhood is a weirdly selfish time - all your energy is devoted to this new creature, and to just getting the basic stuff you need like sleep and water and food. So people don't have the mental energy to be as thoughtful as they might have been at another time. Give it a month or so and it will be all about sleep or colic or immunisations or whatever.

You also do have a birth story to share - a Caesarian is a birth. You have the same experience of being in hospital, of holding your baby for the first time, of coping with no sleep etc. You may find that they're really interested in what happens in a Caesarian - after all, most of them will probably want to have more children and may end up having one too.

My experience of baby groups etc was that they were a nice way to get out of the house, but most of my actual mum friends came from NCT or people introducing me to other people who had kids the same age - which is harder if you don't know anyone in the area.

I would maybe say something like, "I know you're not trying to be insensitive, but I'm really struggling with the guilt over not being able to breastfeed and all this breastfeeding talk is making me feel really sad. Do you think we could tone it down a bit?" Give them a chance, and if it doesn't make a difference, you can ditch them then.

Ugh how shit for you OP. It's such a shame breastfeeding can divide new mothers. I frankly hate all the debates online, press to do with it.

I think it's a stage as all my NCT group talk about now is either how well behaved (or not) their 3 year olds are. I'd still stay 'friends' but find some more like minded company. I found mummysocial good for this xxx

I wouldn't confront them at all just hold them at arms length (you don't know who is going to be in DCs nursery or school class in the future) and find some other people to be friends with