How was your 1st visit to your 1st mum & baby group??? Nervous 1st time mum.

[cupcake78]

As a first time mum I am beginning to feel like I have cabin fever and need to fill my days with more than just baby talk and cleaning up baby sick. DS is 4 weeks on Sat and I have found some groups to go to but I have yet to pluck up the courage and go!!!

I used to be relatively confident and able to meet and talk to new people. During the latter stages of my pregnancy that confidence went and has not come back, if anything it has dimished further !!

What do I do when I get there!! How was your 1st trip to mum and baby group?? Is ds to young to go??

any advice.

If you do go now and don't enjoy it, don't give up. I made myself go to groups when DS was a few weeks old as I thought I should, but TBH I didn't really enjoy it. I stopped going after a few times. But when DS was about 8 months I started going again and this time I have found it brilliant. DS gets something out of it, ie playing and a different environment, which I think helped me to relax. I have met loads of people and almost everyone has been friendly.

Yes, go. I went to a lovely baby group when my son was 4 weeks old. It kept me sane I think. I became friendly with about six or seven women who all had babies at the same time as me and we used to find something to do together everyday. We've just organised a joint 1st birthday party and it has been so great going though sleeping, weaning etc with others.

Just talk to anyone, particularly if they look a bit down. That's what I did.

cupcake78 - go go go to baby group!guess what every other newbie is as nervous as you. but what yo all have in common is beautiful wee babies.go have fun, cupa tea, new faces

and another thing we used to survive living in caves and so on before double glazing and radiators..so a well wrapped up 4week baby is a hardy wee thing

have a smashing time

Do you know if your local doctor's surgery/health visitors are running a postnatal group? These are usually for first time Mum's and you are automatically invited when your baby is around 8wks. I found this a lifesaver, and when the group was coming to an end , after 6wks or so, a few of us who were all in the same boat decided to brave the local church toddler group. It was brilliant knowing would see a familiar face when I first walked in.

Do you know if your local doctor's surgery/health visitors are running a postnatal group? These are usually for first time Mum's and you are automatically invited when your baby is around 8wks. I found this a lifesaver, and when the group was coming to an end , after 6wks or so, a few of us who were all in the same boat decided to brave the local church toddler group. It was brilliant knowing would see a familiar face when I first walked in.

Also check out the NCT website and see if they run a babycafe local to you, or if there is phone number for the local NCT person. I was terrified to go to our local one because I was bottlefeeding and assumed that they would look down on me (I was feeling really really guilty about not b'feeding!), when I rang and asked if it would be ok to go to the local babycafe and bottlefeed, she burst out laughing,because half of the women that went were bottlefeeding, I felt like a bit of an idiot but it meant that rather than walking into a room of complete strangers, I had a contact.

I went when DS was 3 weeks old and it was great. Everyone was really friendly and tried to include me, even though it was obvious some people knew each other quite well. They started asking me to other social activities pretty much straight away and I was really pleased to have made some local friends.

Definitely go for it!

My advice would be to just be brave and march up to someone who looks as if they're baby is about the same age as yours, or a bit older, say hi, and then compliment their baby massively!!

We all love talking about our babies don't we, so if you say lovely things about their baby and ask them lots of nice questions like, 'I love his top, where's it from? It looks so fab with his gorgeous eyes' etc etc then you'll be well away!!

Well I went!! and everyone was really really friendly .

Didn't stay for very long and DS did start to cry as expected but strangly that got more attention from mums saying how gorgeous he is etc etc. I didn't say much but didn't really have to as I found the other mums approached me which was something I was not really expecting.

So I will be going back next week and it has given me the incentive to go to more in my area in the hope that there will be a few familiar faces. Things are looking up. All I need now is for DS to sleep at night Ummm may have some time before I get to that.

Oh that's great.
I forgot to say, I made really good friends there too. I think the friendships you make early on in your baby's life are very strong and very important. I suppose because you all know about each other's pelvic floors/nipples/lack of sex drive/utter exhaustion etc.....