To ask if NCT is worth it?

[Crispchops]

Expecting our first baby in autumn. Is it worth paying for an NCT course? I was talking to a colleague who said they found it to be cliquey and essentially just a way of buying friends. She also said that in her group, by demographic mums were all 35+. This isn’t a problem for me at all but wondering if it will mean that we are judged for being considerably younger than the others there. (I’m 22, turning 23 and DH just turned 25).

If not NCT, would you recommend another antenatal course instead?

It is a bit of a lottery. I know that NCT has a bit of a reputation. I just made use of the free NHS ante natal classes as there wasn't an NCT group where I lived. My sister really gelled with her group and is still in touch with them over 30 years later.

Given the demographic you may feel a little out of place at 22 though, but I would keep an open mind.

This was me! I did the trendier 'bump and baby' version of NCT, I wish I didn't bother.

I needed to go in July and the instructor was off in my local area, they didn't have cover, so we had to go the next town. As did many others, so our grown wasn't on my doorstep. A good few of them were painfully posh and stuck up. I did judge a couple really young ones because at 36, I didn't want to hang around with a 27 year old... sorry but I don't.

I wonder if some of the group stayed in touch and I was one of the outsiders but I'd be surprised, the group chat was painful from day 1. Someone posted in there recently a throwback pic and zero people replied.

A couple of mum's announced their second pregnancies, that got replies but I didn't announce mine and I'm sure others didn't.

In my desperate first few months on motherhood, I met them a couple times but felt so judged by them, which also may have been a me problem as I was self conscious and had PND.

The instructor was the worst. Told us not to harvest colostrum as it's a new fad and didn't exist in hospitals when she worked in them in 2008, even said they can't store every mum's syringes as they don't have freezer space. My midwife said that's rubbish! DS was late so I managed to harvest quite a bit and just as well I took it in! Had EMCS, was being sick non stop and could barely lift my head, he needed food so the colostrum was essential.

They didn't tell us anything about cluster feeding, witching hours, wake windows all the things I could really have done with some help knowing about. Waste of time and money.

Exactly. It’s pure chance. My group just didn’t get on, which isn’t that surprising for sixteen people whose only commonality is having babies at around the same time in roughly the same bit of London. No ‘cliqueishness’ or judgementalism, we just didn’t much like one another. I thought it was worth a shot at the time. With hindsight, I wouldn’t bother in the knowledge the social aspect is what you’re paying for, and it just didn’t work in ours.

How much is it to join nowadays?
When I was looking into it 24 years ago it was £90 which I thought was rather steep.

I remember nothing of my course except we all had medical intervention and none of us cared!

We were all older (youngest 31, oldest 42) and lived in London within half a mile of each other. Apart from 2 who relocated country (and who we still message) we are all still in contact. It was daily whilst on Mat leave, weekly when we started back working and now the kids are 18 the mums meet monthly for dinner, we do a family bbq in the summer and various other events. We're a family of sorts.

Over the years there's been holidays together and a fantastic time. Kids all get on brilliantly despite being very different. The thing about London is that none of them went to the same schools despite living close which helped.

However, I am very aware that we were all very similar- married, one or both high earners, homeowners. It was a very specific London bubble and while it's worked really well I can imagine for someone not at that stage of life our group would have perhaps felt a bit weird to be a member of. Nct takes people who live geographically close and that led to us being massively homogeneous (in terms of income and marital status- there is ethnic and lgbtq diversity.)

It was a lot of money for a group of friends that barely lasted beyond my wife’s mat leave. She made better, lasting, friendships from classes at the children’s centre, which were free. Our teacher was ok, but there was clearly a preheated way. My sister is still friends with from there and son is 22/23 ish.

I made lasting friendships in mine (babies now doing A levels). I was new to the area so it was worth it.

There was definitely a natural birth agenda and the BF counsellor who did a couple of sessions was utterly shit. Most of us ended up with a C section or heavy interventions, so I don't think the content of the course makes much difference when it comes to medical need!

But I'd do it again, definitely. It is very person-dependent though, and the luck of the deaw who you get. I did a refresher NCT when I was expecting dc2 and we didn't gel at all.

As I was an older mum and didn't know anyone else in my circle of friends who was having a baby (they'd all had theirs 20 years before!) I went to NCT classes to meet people, not to learn about giving birth 🤣

I don't remember much about what we were taught but don't remember it being anti pain relief or any hippy shit. I do remember the Lego operating theatre model to show how many people would be in the room if you had a c-section. Which was good because I had an emergency CS.

I do know that I met some fabulous women who were a good laugh, great support and I'd have been lost without them in those early days.

It's 16 years ago now and I'm still in touch with most of them. A couple are very close friends and it's weird to think that we met because of NCT!

I met one of my best friends at an NCT group, she was the group leader. When I met the 'boss' leader (area thingy) I realised just how un NCT my friend was (is) thank god🙏🏼.

NCT wasn't for me, middle class mums, mostly professional and all comparing (not just babies!) and that is what I hear from my DD who joined when she had my grandson.

I never fitted in, nor wanted too!

You are paying for friends, yes. For us that was worth it. Hard to predict though.

This is completely accurate in my opinion.

Some of The ridiculous advice from NCT should be banned.

I didn't do it as worked weekends so couldn't make the meetings. Met a lot of good friends through breastfeeding support group (after birth)

The content and way the course is delivered probably depends on your leader, ours was a hippy type who didn’t do much on practicalities but did devote a whole session on the ‘cascade of intervention’ and the horrors of induction. As it turns out, 5/8 women in my group have now given birth and 4 of us (me included) have had inductions for medical reasons all leading to c-sections, I felt a lot of guilt around my operation and the factors leading up to it which I might not have done otherwise. It’s also heavily geared to breastfeeding and again due to my experiences in labour I haven’t been able to establish this easily, one of the other mums private messaged me recently to say she’s been struggling too and we’ve both been close to a breakdown because of the guilt as it was drummed into us that formula is the devil. So make of that what you will.

Having said that the social aspect was worth it for me and more so now that we’ve got a new whatsapp chat that doesn’t include the course leader! Age range I would say most people were between late twenties and early forties, without being a snob I would say most are ‘professionals’ and if you fit in with this you would be fine regardless of age. I deliberately chose to pay for NCT for the reason that I expected people to be older. We also did some free antenatal classes provided by the midwife which were full of very young mums, I’m 35 so felt out of place there.

We did NCT classes and I attended the parent and baby/toddler group once Ds was born. I volunteered for them for a while too. Our teacher was fab. She gave me the tools to advocate for myself and as a result I got the water birth I wanted which I am so grateful for. She also got us thinking about the practicalities of having a newborn and was non judgmental. The ages were mixed. Mid 20s to late 30s in our group. The teacher was a mum of 4 and had 3 c sections and then a water birth at home for no 4. I met one of my closest friends at the baby group and its 17 years ago. The class members kept in touch for the first year or two but it slowed and stopped once we were all back at work. Some of the group stayed in touch. Even though it didn’t last for me it was valuable at the time. I met people who I still class as friends while volunteering. I am a big fan.

Sometimes I wish I had the opportunity to join socially. (but it was virtual only or in the next town in person which would have been useless for me as I don't drive so social meetups would have been impossible). I've got a 3 year old who has no friends sadly as I'm sadly friendless and makes me incredibly sad for her. Tried peanut and mums groups but never found anyone I've actually made friends with. It's interesting to see that lots don't work out socially as that was purely the reason I joined. Did a few free courses for the practical side of things online which covered what we needed.

I did it with my first - I didn’t stay in touch with anyone after the first 6 months - a few meet ups that’s all. Our teacher had set us up for a very different birth experience than we all had! I certainly went in thinking everything would be fine just like she said with no need for intervention and that was not the case for many of us. I made more, better friends at the local baby group run by the health visitor. With my 3rd child I went to the local leisure centre and did their pregnancy Pilates class and met a great group through that.

My mum did NCT and is still friends with them 30 years later.

I did NCT as a young mum and the others were literally twice my age and we didn’t gel. I’m not friends with any of them and only make polite conversation with one because our children do an activity together.

I don’t remember much from the sessions other than thinking it was a bit too woo for me. They said DH should brush the negative energy of my elbows and I wanted to deck him!

I did NCT at age 19, the next youngest member of the group was 29 IIRC. The oldest was 40 and most were in their 30s.

I did still find it useful, yes perhaps the idea of "buying friends" seems a bit cynical, but in reality the experience of having your first baby is totally isolating, you get thrust into a brand new situation which is really hard and none of your existing friends if they don't have children can relate to it. Having a group where I could talk to other people going through the same thing was amazing.

Ultimately the age and demographic gap did make it a little difficult. The others all had professional jobs whereas my work experience was extremely limited, and they all had cars and mortgages on these absolutely enormous, beautiful houses and some of them had cleaners etc, whereas I couldn't drive and was in a rented house in not a great state of repair and honestly was struggling quite a bit with my mental health. I was also the first one to split from my partner although one of the other mums did about a year after me (I am not saying that is an automatic for all younger mums, just the circumstances I was in personally!)

Overall I do think it was still worth it. In the very early days, none of this stuff mattered, and one of the other mums very kindly would pick me and DC up if we were going to meet somewhere that wasn't accessible by public transport. As the children got older and people went back to work we all met up less anyway though I did stay in touch with some of them, and then it sort of petered out a bit more after the children turned two, though I got the impression some of them probably continued to meet up. When I got together with my now DH, he used to hate going to meet up with them as he hated all the work/cars/football chat with the dads. Not his scene at all.

I found the birth info really useful as the ones I went to went through a lot of the physiology of labour which I had not known and which I found incredibly helpful.

It was worth it for me. I’m still friends with most of my group nearly 20 years on. We supported each other through the pregnancies, baby and toddler years; GCSEs and A Levels; illnesses and bereavements; successes and mental health blips.

I was late 20s when I was pregnant with my first, and there was one other in the group around the same age, but all the rest were around 10 years older than us. It didn’t matter at all as we had that shared experience of becoming parents for the first time.

It's worth it if you need local mum friends to hang out with on mat leave. If you don't, probably not.

Don't believe the people who tell you that you can make friends by going to baby groups - most baby groups are full of people hanging out with their NCT/ other antenatal course friends.

I’m sorry your experience wasn’t positive; this wasn’t my experience of it at all. Our teacher covered all types of birth and feeding without any hint of bias. As it happens, most of the group needed C-sections. Most of us breastfed but I don’t think that was because of any brainwashing- we were just lucky that it worked out, in some cases with support from lactation consultants or support groups. For one of the group it didn’t work out so she formula fed and there was certainly no judgement from any of us in the group. Definitely no golfers either 😂 Granted there are a couple of dentists and lawyers among the group but also teachers and people who started their own businesses in trades.

A big no - I wasn’t looking for any new friends and the instructor was so judgemental when I said I was having an early epidural, was bottle feeding from day one and going back to work full time after six months.

I'll add another positive experience to the balance - I am still very close friends with all of my NCT lot 6 years down the line - we've all had second babies and a couple have moved away but we still make an effort to meet up centrally so for me, it brought some wonderful people into my life at a time when I was really well-placed to use some company. One of them is 10 years younger than most of us and one is 4/5 years older but it hasn't made any difference.

As for the teaching side of things? Couldn't tell you - it wasn't too preachy as far as I remember but I have heard some horror stories too.

That said, you could just as plausibly make a group of mum friends by going to playgroups and classes, so it's not the end of the world if you don't go.

Obviously your experience will be what it is, no one can tell if it'll be worth it or not but if you're trying to weigh up pros and cons mine is definitely a plus. Good luck to you whichever you decide!

I can see some people saying it's worth it just to make friends so I just wanted to say that as someone who didn't do NCT, I didn't find it hard to make parent friends at all. I picked up a group mostly via the old app Mush, it doesn't exist anymore but there was one called Peanut which was/is the same, not sure if that's still going? And otherwise I met people at baby/playgroups and exchanged numbers, later on got friendly with some of the parents of my DC1's friends at nursery and now school. You don't have to shell out just to meet people, if that's your concern. Almost all my 'parent' friends were a lot older than myself and DH although now I'm pregnant with my 3rd and 30, I am finally starting to meet some people closer in age to us who are usually having their first DC haha. But the age gap has never been a problem, I have a few good mates now that ive known for over 5yrs who are about a decade older than me.

The birth/babycontent you could pick up anywhere.

It was worth it for me as we all got on well and are still great friends over a decade later. It helped that we all lived within a mile of each other - we are spread across 10 years age wise and have different jobs and different backgrounds but we all got on great (and still do).

If that hadn’t happened it would have been a waste of money so it’s really luck of the draw!