To ask what you wish you had learnt in antenatal classes

[WWYD00]

I had a thread running yesterday about my six month old son who has positional plagiocephaly (flat head syndrome). This is inspired by a comment on there of a private practice midwife who talks to expectant parents about prevention of plagiocephaly. This is something I wish I had learnt about at NCT rather than all the pregnancy bits which were pretty irrelevant seeing as I was 8 months pregnant already.

There are other things I wish I had learnt about too. I spent money on an expensive electric steraliser and it was awful. I ended up with a £10 Milton bucket which I love. Granted I may have made the same choice again, but what do you wish you'd learnt in antenatal rather than what you did (I didn't do the NHS ones so can't say whether it was covered there or not!).

I didn't go to any antenatal classes because my baby was born early so it would be interesting to hear from others what was actually taught/discussed there and if I missed out of not.

I had a microwave steriliser to begin with but changed to a Milton one because I hated it. However I struggle to get the liquid and tablets because I assume people are buying them to wash their shopping in. As seen from a few threads on here.

About how important winding a baby is and how to do it effectively.
Tips for how to help baby get to sleep.

I went to NHS antenatal classes which focused very much on birth and breastfeeding.

Mine was brilliant actually and I cannot think of anything really (NCT).
A bit more time on how to actually look after baby I guess. I still felt clueless about picking her up!

Our group is really close and we are all EBF (youngest baby 9 months) so they did a good job and we all had good births too (1 breech ELCS and the rest were gas and air short vaginal deliveries) so we are an NCT dream team

I have never used a steriliser. I have the £10 Milton one but still in the wrapper! I shouldn’t have bought it but panicked that I’d need bottles.

Agree re baby sleeping. Probably because of the emphasis on breastfeeding and how you should be led by your baby, I assumed he would lead the sleeping too. His napping and sleeping routine was non-existent, I was so embarrassed when he went to nursery and they asked me to fill in details about his routine.

The risks and likelihood of birth interventions.

What breastfeeding is actually like. They seem to have an agenda to push breastfeeding so talked about all the positives (fine) but didn't talk about cluster feeding, blocked ducts and how to prevent mastitis. Luckily there is a really good breastfeeding support service in my area.

The factors that mean that elective caesarean might be a really smart choice.

What happens when the birth isn’t a straightforward vaginal birth. I did NCT and had a difficult birth. I felt I should be up and running straight away whereas I actually had a reasonably serious injury and should have tried to rest. And some teaching on exhaustion, the effect it can have and how to help it in some way.

What happens when things don’t go to plan. I had an emergency csection and was so scared as I just didn’t know what was going on. I felt I’d failed to give birth as the classes made out if you do everything right your delivery will go a certain way. I wish there was some information on caring for baby. It was all on delivery and breastfeeding and no mention of bottlefeeding. Again felt like a total failure as a mother when breastfeeding was unsuccessful. I think they were more of an hindrance that a help only positive was the friends I made

Following for tips and things to ask about in my next antenatal class

Our group is really close and we are all EBF (youngest baby 9 months) so they did a good job and we all had good births too (1 breech ELCS and the rest were gas and air short vaginal deliveries) so we are an NCT dream team

Congratulations, your medals are in the post

Mine focused on the birth and nothing else.

How difficult breastfeeding is.
This bullshit that it is so natural and easy pissed me off no end.
It's not easy for many women, that is why they ditch it.
If they were honest about how challenging it can be, a lot of women wouldn't feel so shitty about the experience and give up.
It takes real perseverance for a lot of women to get the hang of it.

Putting a baby down to sleep awake teaches them to self soothe and go to sleep themselves.

I did learn this and it was the greatest gift as all my children got into a good routine quickly and were good sleepers.
Bedtime was super fast.

Elevate the head end of carry cot with a couple of packets wipes so if the baby spits up, it lands on their chest. About a 30-40 degree angle.

I think that they could have been more open about issues you could experience with breastfeeding- fast letdown, tongue tie etc. If you knew what to look for then it'd be helpful.

The other things which wasn't covered in hospital and NCT antenatal classes for me was about SIDS/safe cosleeping/risk of smoke around newborns. Our postnatal class covered it but it was far too late IMO at 10 weeks pp.

How hard an emergency c section is on the body.

@UnderTheBus did you do NCT? I found they were almost militant in their promotion of breastfeeding.

Wish someone had told me how much you sweat after too

How to actually breastfeed. I had an hour and a half of the benefits but not how to do the bloody thing. How to hold the baby, how to hand express, what to do if it doesn't work straight away. These are things that would have helped me be able to breastfeed.

Trivial compared to the issues pp have rightly mentioned, but post partum night sweats. I needed 2 sets of pyjamas a night for weeks.

@Puds11 yes it was NCT. The classes weren't great in my opinion - too much focus on natural birth in the birth centre, and breastfeeding.
The worst was an activity where we had to match "feelings" with "settings" with a very strong push that home and birth centre would be linked to words like "calm", "safe" and "in control" while the caesarean theatre was linked to things like "scary", "crowded". I did question this at the time.

However it was still worth the money for the friends I made, who meet very regularly 3 years on (although only by Zoom currently)

Agree about not being militant in promoting bf. Our instructor said categorically that there was absolutely no reason it couldn’t be done. This was dining in my ears for months and made me feel like an utter failure when I couldn’t. I’m still extremely angry about it. I complained to NCT and they said it was fact so had no problem with her spouting this. Six out of seven of us had severe issues (tongue ties, repeated bouts of mastitis Leading to sepsis etc) and it contributed towards three of us having PND. I’m not holding the instructor responsible but it sure as shit didn’t help.

I agree with the breastfeeding comments. I think that managing the expectant mum's expectations would make her feel less of a failure when first trying to breastfeed.

DD was born before broadband, and I had no idea about cluster feeding, and thought that I was just not producing enough milk.

I would have liked to know how you actually get a baby to sleep. Not the safe sleep advice which everyone knows, but in the evenings how do you get baby to go from wide awake to asleep? Things like swaddling, white noise, how to rock a baby (if desperate ) which I eventually learned from frantic google searches.

Perhaps a bit more about the different stages in the early days. So the first day the baby is very sleepy and may not even feed much and that's totally normal. Then they're a bit grouchy when they bring your milk in but are usually still pretty sleepy and happy. Then a couple of weeks later they 'wake up' and the fun starts. Then things usually start to calm down around 3-4 months. I know it's not exactly the same for every baby but most of my friends' babies seemed to follow this pattern.

It took me too long to realise that after the very early sleepy days, babies don't just sleep they're tired. So if they're crying there's a strong chance it's tiredness!

I'm two babies in and I didn't know there was a way to prevent plagiocephaly so I agree with you OP, it would be good if this was taught.

I'm not sure how can teach this, but I wish I'd had a bit more perspective in the early days and known that parenting is a long journey and how you give birth, feed the baby etc is really not that important.

@UnderTheBus I completely agree! I had an emergency c section and was left completely unprepared for how extensive the recovery was.

I do agree that they do the social element well though.

That cluster feeding is real!! That babies can and will feed solidly for 5/6 hours with a quick wee break for you and that's it. If the baby is crying, try to feed it!! I spent hours rocking and shushing and patting and walking in the pram cos 'he old had a feed 20 minutes ago'. Poor thing must have been ravenous

Also risk and likelihood's of intervention. I had planned a natural water birth with no intervention and it all went wrong. I was traumatised from it and wish I had been better informed about assisted delivery.

I wish they had told us about how to look after stitches and other very common birth injuries. I remember asking my community midwife 5 days PP how many women she had visited that day, she said 6, and I asked how many of them had stitches and were in pain, and she said 5!

I remember venting to her that nobody told us at the classes about how to care for stitches, and at least if I'd known I could have stocked up on witch hazel / a peri bottle. I ended up with an infection in my wound on day 6 which led to sepsis.

Bloody NCT. We had to draw how we thought we would 'be' in labour. The 5 other women drew themselves smiling and calm. I really struggled - I was very young and not psychic. I had no idea.

Turns out the rest of the group were all midwives. It was a long time ago but I wish I'd asked for my money back.

I wish they'd talked more about baby blues and post natal depression. It hit me like a truck and for about 12 weeks I was a mess and eventually got help.