activities with newborns

[GingerBeverage]

hi

Just wondering what everyone else's experiences have been of your NCT or antenatal group activities after babies have been born?

I'm struggling to even get dressed while caring for my 3 wk old. Constantly tired, can't string a sentence together etc.
Meanwhile I open our group messages and all the other mums are going out every day - arranging coffees, yoga, sensory sessions and cinema trips.
One mum with a baby less than a week old invited everyone to the pub last night!
I have managed to go to one lunch with them, so I'm also worried that they're busy forging friendships and I'm getting left behind.

So I'm feeling hugely inadequate. I thought being tired and staying home was normal but now I feel there's something wrong with me.

Has anyone else experienced this?

Oh goodness, you're totally normal. I didn't start going to baby group until my first was 8 weeks old. For the first 2 weeks all I did was sleep, eat and care for my baby. I took short walks around the block with the pram when I felt up to it. As I regained my strength/fitness I would walk down to the local cafe for a coffee with my baby in the pram, but definitely nothing that involved doing hair/makeup or getting dressed up. Nothing that involved having to be anywhere by a specific time.

However one girl in my mothers group had a baby's that literally just slept all the time. She said her house had never been cleaner and she was always immaculately groomed. Because she had so much time up her sleeve.

Do not get into the habit of judging yourself and comparing yourself to others. People recover at different rates, they have differing levels of support and their newborns have very different sleep patterns. You can't ever get these first weeks back, so don't pressure yourself to fit too much in.

This sort of thing makes me quite glad I didn’t go to NCT classes. I met lots of lovely mum friends who are on the same wavelength as me when I went to my first baby group - this was when DS was 8 weeks old. Before that it was as you describe - tired, didn’t do much other than chilling, cuddling, normal everyday stuff. I imagine having a load of super mums bragging about baby yoga and whatever else would have made those few cosy weeks not quite so enjoyable. Do what’s right for you OP.

Emergency section here! My DP had 4weeks off luckily and other than shopping from 10days post section and then weekly afterwards.. I barely left the house!
I was expressing (which I've now stopped), but that with the recovery made leaving the house really difficult for me. And that's okay!

What I will say is ignore what everyone else is doing. We all recover differently. Shopping at 10 days turned me into a bloody martyr! It was just the shopping. It took me a few weeks to even put makeup on.
Also when you are feeling.. okay. Just go for a short walk. You don't need to leave the house (I try on a Monday). Its all to easy to sit at home and binge box sets and get to Friday and feel isolated.

*corrected. I didn't mean you don't need to leave the house. That's completely against what I said. Oops.
What I meant was you dont need to meet anyone! Just you and baby and some fresh air.