NCT Early Days course - or are there other young baby groups?

[Devonlover]

Hello, I'm having my first baby in 4 weeks time, and I've been trying to decide whether or not to to do the NCT Early Days postnatal course.

Has anyone else done the course and if so, what did you think? Is it worth the money or are there other groups out there that are just as good for new mums? My main motivation is to meet other very new parents and to hopefully get advice - my family live a fair way away. Plus it will force me to get out of the house...

Any thoughts?
Many thanks!

Have you done the pre-natal course? The NCT courses do come at a price. What do they cover in this course that you could not find out using your HV, MW or even better MN?

Hi ElsieR

Thx for the reply. Yes, I've done the NCT antenatal course which was great. I suppose I'm thinking of 6 weeks or so down the line, post-birth, when I'm on my own all day with a new baby and possibly feeling a bit out of my depth.... as I said, family are a long way away and I don't know that many people locally. I thought the course might be a bit of a social/emotional support, and a way of meeting some other new mums.

On the neg side, the course isn't cheap and the money might be better spent elsewhere. The NCT's Bumps and Babies drop in would have been ideal, and it's free, but annoyingly they don't run these in Brighton.

There are other (and cheaper) ways to meet new mums.
Check out your local library for stuff like rhymetime and if you are in Brighton, I'll be surprised if there is no mother and toddler groups around, as well as swimming sessions at the local pool or courses like baby yoga.
You can also arrange to meet up with the gals you met at your first NCT course.
You can also post something on MN local.
If you spend the money but don't click with the people you meet, you'll be well gutted!

ask your health visitor there are some new mums groups in childrens centres but normally have to be referred for it by hv? (for the ones that are a set number of weeks etc not drop in)

Urgh, I did this and hated every moment.

I had made friends on the ante natal course and saw them a lot so if you are good mates with them you will have them to speak to.

From personal experience the reason I did not enjoy the course was because I felt the lady running it was looking for us to all have problems and we were supposed to come and cry every week about how hard everything was.

I can see why this would be useful if this was your experience but I was having quite a smug good experience so felt I was being patronised. I did keep in contact with 1 other person from the group but I did other things that were about 1million times more fun and cheaper.

Hope all goes well for you!

Thanks everyone for the useful suggestions. Maybe I'm panicking unnecessarily! Would be nice to save the cash tbh.