I took DS (11 weeks) to his first ever baby group thigy and have already emailed the oragnisers to say I wouldn't be coming back (it was an orgnaised group thing that you were meant to commit to for 30 weeks).
It was 2.5 hours so a massive chunk of the day, and I have a really low tolerance for group singalong type activities anyway (I blame going to a religious schoolf or 13 years ... my appetite for sitting in a circle singing songs has been well and truly exhausted.)
I never went to ante-natal classes (mainly because I couldn't be bothered and again the group activity antipathy) so this was the first baby group thing I'd dne and it was as bad as I had feared it would be.
We had to sit in a circle and there was a Thought For The Day ("I hope I am always my child's favourite toy") which I totally don't agree with but which elicited worthy responses from the group, we had to make name cards on coloured cards & decorate them with the stuff provided (ber in midn this is a baby group so the decorating wasn't an activity our kids could join in on - it basically meant 15 30-something women all got busy cutting and pasting while the babies lay on the mats. Then we were told about the Importance Of Reading to Your Child, which I'm pretty sure all the highly competitive 30 somethig women from this affluent area were aware of, nd the faciitator read us Hairy McClairy. Again, the babies couldn't see the book (as it was tny & she was sitting in the middle of the large circle)... so it was basically a group of grown women being read a story.
I know that there are some things I will have to suck up & get involved in now I have kids but am I unreasonable to have found the whole thing massively annoying & to have dropped out? And will DS be irrevocably damaged if I boycott all such future activities in favour of the playground/catching him with friends' kids & just occasionally take him to Wriggle & RHyme at the library?