To wonder if your NCT group are still friends?

[whereilived]

Ours was pretty tight but now the year before school I can feel is drifting. It’s sad but a bit inevitable I suppose! Has anyone managed to maintain friendships?

Not my NCT one but my NHS one - 23 years and still meet up!

Ours fizzled out after the first year.

Nobody wrote in the group chat after about 6 months

8 families. One rage quit us because we whatsapped rather than met up, one couple split up and mum moved far away. Then, horribly one of the babies in our group died suddenly, and somehow we got through it together. We don't meet up often enough but the group chat does go off fairly frequently 9 years later.

Dont panic! NCT group a dead loss as we all moved away from the very expensive London area no one could afford to continue living in. Friends I met at toddler group and primary school I see weekly and have an epic social life with. Our eldest are all 18 and hardly any are still friends with each other but thats irrelevant.

No - 18 years on but we only really met up for the first year while on mat leave.
Only five couples, all very different people. The mums got on fine enough to meet up with babies but not enough to bother after returning to work. The dads never really built friendships either despite a few meet-ups with everyone there. I got on really well with one of the other women and we continued to socialise but they moved away after a couple of years.
Tried again with second baby but only three other couples, the mums were already friendly from living in the same small village so didn’t bother with me at all. Dead loss!
I feel quite envious of those who made life-long friendships in their NCT groups and are still meeting up and even going on group holidays - after 20 years in the case of one of my friends. Fortunately I did manage to make a group of mum friends in the primary school years.

I feel really fortunate to say that, after 18 years, our core group of 10 NCT friends remain in contact. It’s not as frequent as it once was, but we have a group chat that we contribute to regularly. We’ve supported each other through serious illnesses, “losing family
members, subsequent babies, all the parenthood pitfalls and celebrations. These women are pure gold - never judgemental, just genuine warmth and support - don’t know how I would’ve done parenting without them!

No, we drifted apart by the end of mat leave.

On the other hand, my parents are still friends with people they met through NCT, and I've just turned 40! This was very much helped by them all living in the same small town and most of us kids going to the same primary school. But even though we've all long flown the nest, they still hang out together, now mainly exchanging stories of grandchildren!

No. I think several mums did stay in touch and I gradually realised I wasn't one of the "in" crowd so haven't pursued when the WhatsApp messages died out.

Not really. I see two of them on a regular basis and another one I keep in touch via occasional WhatsApp messages. The group started to fall apart when the kids were about 1, due largely to the behaviour of one member in particular. To be honest, except the 3 I did keep proper contact with, I don't think I had much in common with the group other than happening to have kids around the same time and wouldn't have chosen to be friends with them outside that context.

Ours fizzled out after a few years; all perfectly nice ladies, we hung out lots in the first year on maternity leave and then a lot of us had second babies around a similar time so it had a bit of a resurrection and did lots of soft plays. Lockdown and then the older kids starting school sort of led to it fizzling out. I am glad I did it though, especially on my first maternity leave it was nice to have people at similar stages to natter to!

Over 8 years since I had my oldest and just today met up with an NCT couple we met when pregnant with him. They are godparents to my youngest (8 months). It happens :-)

No. Most of the mums were nice enough but there was one queen bee who I really disliked, very domineering, competitive and snobby. The feeling seemed to be mutual as she was very dismissive towards me and one of the others. In the end, we'd had enough, stopped meeting up with them and started going to a toddler group where we met some other mums. I'm still loosely in touch with some of them some 20 years later. One of the mums did ask why we'd stopped meeting up but didn't seem bothered when we told her why, so no loss. However, we heard a couple of years later that the remainder of the group eventually fell out with queen bee and effectively told her where to go. Whether the rest of them are still friends I've no idea.

I know a couple of people who are best friends with their groups years later. I do feel a bit jealous but it's mainly luck I think.

15 years on (DD1), two of my closest friends I met at an NCT equivalent. There were several others I don't have any contact with at all though and maybe a couple on FB but we don't actually communicate.
The kids aren't friends anymore though, they've all found their own mates as teens often do.
I didn't bother with any groups when DD2 (6) was tiny (just met up with friends who already had children a similar age) but I did meet another friend at toddlers when DD2 was 1 and she's still another very close friend.

Alas no. I paid a lot of money for promised friendship! Two couples moved away, another two shunned the rest of the group to go off and be besties. Covid happened when the babies were 6 months tho and then mat leave was over so in that respect it was unlucky.

I don't have a great view of NCT tho, we did have a rather bizarre teacher who told us some things that were definitely untrue (One of the particpating couples included a doctor!) I would only recommend it if you didn't know a single other person having a child at the same time anywhere.

Children are 7 now. I remain close friends with two of them, we speak and catch up fairly regularly. Three more we all have dinner maybe once a year and have a blast, say we must do it again soon, and then leave it another year. 😂

Life is busy when they get to school.

17 years on, just one couple and we're very close friends. But tbh the others were all a bit batshit one way or another!!!

9 years on and 3 of us still occasionally WhatsApp but our DC go to different schools and the DC don't really get on hugely so it's hard to keep up.

Yes 4 of us are still friends and our DC are coming up to 16. 😊

Yes 23 years on! We were a book club once the children went to school and now meet up a couple of times a year for dinner. X

Went out for dinner with mine last week (there's five of us). Our babies are 21 this year.
Helps we are all still fairly local and we have always got on.

My NCT group changed and evolved (NCT & Baby classes), but I'm still friends with a group of mums I met in that first year!

Yes!! 18 years and going strong

Good friends with 2 out of 5 of them 9 years later.

I kept one NCT friend but she's my bestie.