To wonder what is the most awkward baby/toddler group you've been to?

[IneedsomeSleeppleasenow]

Just curious to hear your stories!

When DS was about 8 months we went to a weaning group which sounded fun and as a new mum I thought a good way to meet other local mums.

It was essentially about 7 babies in a circle sat in one of those plastic trays with random bits of food to try ( bit of bread, a few veggies, cheese). Then given some flour with water in a bowl to mix (?)

I just didn't understand what the point of it was, as could have just that at home. I was expecting maybe it was more about sharing tips, some recipe ideas etc.
Biggest waste of £10 ever, but I had to laugh.

Bless your hearts. I did the exact same thing during a particularly difficult and stressful playgroup session when we were both trying so hard to fit in.

My DD was later diagnosed with various disabilities too, it did explain her behaviour and reluctance to join in with some of the activities.

Not as odd as a lot of the stories on here, but my funniest experience was the baby sensory Christmas party. It was actually quite good and the woman who ran it was lovely but first of all DH came and when we sang the "hello to the sun" song his eyes nearly popped out of his head (he still plays it on YouTube sometimes and this party was about 4 years ago ), so that started me off. Then there were these massive balloons floating around which the kids loved, but randomly half way through the session they started popping very very loudly one by one for no discernable reason and I could NOT stop laughing. Kids were crying, the woman got really flustered, parents were desperately shepherding their tots away from these enormous exploding balloons in what was a quite small space and I was an absolute goner. In the end I pretended ds needed a nappy change so I could go to the loos and collect myself. Still laugh about it now.

We did the singing hello to the sun type sensory class. To call the teacher odd would be like calling Elon Musk comfortable money wise. She was obsessed with realness, and nothing being cartoonised or cuted up.

Halfway through the first session I did we were taken into a little room in groups of 4 where she performed a puppet show. Each little group returned looking shell shocked, not surprising when the puppet show was a lion that massacred a giraffe, followed by an elephant.

Brilliant 😂😂😂

This reminds me of a hilarious scene in Cold Feet where James Nesbitt’s character takes his baby to a music group. Anyone seen it?

‘Matthew Matthew, 2, 3, 4’ 😂😂😂

Haha some of these are funny! I’ve not had any really bad experiences but DD is a covid baby so our options have been limited!

We did baby sensory and now in the toddler sensory with the same group which is fun, everyone’s nice and pleasant. Also did baby swim, baby and mama fitness classes and baby ballet which were all good too.

I did look at the church hall type groups but the 3 I looked at all seemed really cliquey and as PPs have said had the same women dominating the Facebook pages eg ‘everyone remember yours donations for XYZ tomorrow, can someone other than me and X bring the snack this week’ etc so I swerved those ones!

I went to a Baby Massage class when my DD was a few weeks old. She did a poo about a few minutes into the session so I excused myself and changed her in a corner. When I re-joined the group the woman running the class told me "you know, you should really ask for your DD's consent before you change her nappy". I thought she was joking for a second, then I realised that not only was she deadly serious but all the other Mums were nodding in agreement. I realised these were not my people. We didn't go back.

I went to loads of playgroups when my son was young most were great and low cost a particularly nice one was led by a group of local mums and they had a lovely outside area with fake grass and loads of toys they also got loads of nice buffet type food for the kids and had endless tea and toast and only charged £1! The only group I didn't like was at my local childrens centre it was a group of middle class mums who had all met at NCT and were weirdly competitive about their babies . Just a case of trying a few and seeing what fits x

I've been to some nice groups held in local church halls but also some odd ones. I took DC1 to a lot of groups and classes including one that was done in the dark with lots of different lights and sensory things for newborns to look at. It was nice enough but the teacher would do a little show at the end with glow in the dark puppets and I just couldn't get past this lady jumping about in the dark vigorously with various animals on her hands and head. I also met some quite snooty ladies there who just wanted to brag about their impressive jobs...

I went to a group which is very popular but turned out to be very cliquey. My DC was too big for the baby activities (ball pit and tummy time mats) and too small for the toddler activities where older kids were running about while their parents had coffee and caught up with their friends. I ended up leaving early and pretending DC needed a nap. It would have perhaps been better if I'd have gone with a friend but no one would talk to me so it felt a little lonely.

I also tried a group where you had to join in with the songs by putting props on your child and on yourself, things like rubber gloves on your feet and rockstar glasses on your baby. It just felt so cringe!

Baby sensory. Expensive and what's with the song about saying hello to corn?! I missed the first couple of sessions and never knew the words to the song. Also another mum made a horrible comment to me about bottle feeding that I cried in the car on way home and never went back

A Welsh-language Steiner toddler group. Only three of us turned upand no organiser. I speak a fair bit of Welsh but am not fluent, but I was keen for DS to start learning early. The other two mums arrived together, sat in a corner speaking Welsh, pretty much with their backs to me, and completely ignored me and my DS. He got bored of the wooden toys after about 15 minutes and we left and never went back.

@ShirleyPhallus i think the same, it’s not like the first week at university where you feel you should be making lifelong friends!

Its a shame tbh people are saying they heard how awful they are so didn’t go at all. If I’d listened to MN when I had my first I’d have thought HVs were nosy idiots (mine was very nice!) baby classes/NCT were a waste of time and filled with cliquey mums (in fact I quite enjoyed both and my NCT group are amongst my closest friends) and maternity leave was going to be this long awful drag (it was lovely!)

Yep similar experience here. DC1 was generally either fast asleep, feeding or crying during the class. Don't remember doing any actual yoga!

I had the misfortune of going to a local NCT playgroup once. I took DS who was a few months old. Paid my money to get in, sat down, tried to engage some mums in conversation but it was clear from the outset it was very cliquey. Felt like an idiot after being ignored, grabbed a biscuit and trotted off home with my little one. Thank goodness all of the groups we went to weren’t like that!

My dh was working in the West Country back in 1987, so me and 18mth old DS went to join him for the summer.
We went along to Mums and toddlers group… omg… nobody spoke to us, and they were all posh yummy mummies older than me. It was excruciating, I felt like dying! We never went back and I hated every moment down there. I came back to my home town about 3 weeks early, with dh following on. I still cringe at the way they were with me.
I was just 22.

All of them tbh. I tried one in a local park last summer, the other Mum’s totally blanked me because they all already knew each other and they basically sat with their backs to me chatting to each other throughout. One of their DC who was probably about 18 months old came over to my DS who was only 10 months old at the time and pounced on him, he started grabbing his hair and clawing his face. The Mum didn’t even apologise or rush over, she carried on chatting with her friend at first then nonchalantly wandered over making excuses for her child’s behaviour. He kept targeting my DS, it happened another couple of times and he was really vicious so I just left.

Tried another group at the library which I used to go to with my older DS pre-covid and mostly enjoyed but you can guess who was there… He didn’t target my DS this time but targeted another child and my DS ended up getting hurt when they were fighting. Again, the Mum sat on the other side of the room chatting to her friends and didn’t apologise. I didn’t go back there either.

Not me, but my mum used to tell us about the mum and baby group she went to where they were all asked to bring along a magazine to share/talk about. She arrived and watched as all the other mums produced their copies of "mother and baby" etc. My mum had brought a copy of Private Eye... She realised these people were not for her and never returned!

I agree that some of the village hall type ones can be cliquey but I can't say it ever led to me going home and crying over it. Sod em, I was there for my baby not them.

Baby massage where the woman made us ask our newborns if we can touch them????

I find all these terms of “cliquey” and “unfriendly”, “bitchy”, “turned their backs on m e” etc etc really interesting. I am quite sure some of these women will have met each other at the groups. Those of you who have experienced this so called unfriendliness- did you go up to them, ask if you could have a seat and make conversation? Or just expect that other people should try and get you socialised by looking out for the people on their own and making sure they were spoken to?

Most of the ones near us are all attended are all attended/run by the same group of women who were worst sort of judgy. The ringleader is an ex NCT leader who set up on her own and flogs her own classes. She attends all of the local baby groups trying to drum up business and word is absolute gospel.

I stopped going to them when they said they’d send me a study about the impact on the environment of baby formula. I couldn’t breastfeed so spent a year attached to a breast pump for three hours a day, with very occasional formula top ups when my baby was nearly 1. I was absolutely enraged! We now stick to the baby groups run by the army, thankfully they can’t infiltrate them because they are for army families only.

@pixie5121 I never went to any baby groups - didn't really see the need. I didn't do any kind of childbirth classes either! They're not mandatory and I still somehow made a small group of mum/dad friends.

DS is 3 now and we take him to a toddler gymnastics class. It's hilarious and anarchic and I love it.

You win, that's fucking bonkers.

@ShirleyPhallus

Despite being only 22, I was really sociable and outgoing and had a job with children for several years prior. I was keen to mix and make friends even though we were only there for a short while over the summer.
I introduced myself and my DS… and basically got blanked. I obviously didn’t fit their ideal so that was the end of that.
If you think of Amanda from ‘Motherland’ you wouldn’t be far off the mark.

My friend's husband was expelled from a baby swimming group for singing rude versions of the nursery rhymes....