Experience of church run baby groups?

[trrk]

I have been struggling to find local baby groups or classes to start attending with my 4 month old, especially ones where we can drop in rather than committing to a whole term of expensive classes. The ones I’ve found so far are run by local churches but I’m slightly nervous about attending as I’m not religious. Most are poorly advertised online so I was wondering if they are mainly targeted at regular attendees of the church and everyone will know each other already. The best advertised one mentions Bible stories at the end - my DD is too young to understand them anyway but seems like the group might be targeted specifically at Christians? I guess there is only one way to find out what they are like but was just wondering what your experience is of church based baby groups if you are not religious or not a Christian?

the place is a godsend (pardon the pun)

The one near me is absolutely brilliant. Great cake, lots of helpers, £1 per family (!) entry.

I'm a volunteer at our church run baby/toddler group. We welcome everyone and have people of other religions come along too. We have some singing and short bible story at the end and most parents/carers join in but some don't. There are leaflets of special events, Christmas services etc available but we would only speak about faith if someone asked us.
Give it a go but I would recommend trying more than once as if can take a few times to know whether it suits you or not.
Some of my best memories of the early years with my children are from the time spent at these groups... making friends for me, seeing my children playing with others and just being able to turn up on the day however I felt without having to make any arrangements beforehand..
It's also great for finding out about other groups that are on too.

My experience is very similar to other PPs. Took DC1 to a 0-12 months baby group pre-pandemic, in a baptist church. The woman running it was lovely, always made sure you had a hot drink and biscuits (not bad for 50p). I initially found it because of the NCT bf support that was also there. No religion involved in it at all. When DC1 was a bit older we started going to another, which is an hour of playing, 15 minutes of songs (mix of nursery rhymes and religious, but always for kids) and then the kids sit down and have fruit while the adults have a hot drink and biscuits. Both my kids (now 4 and almost 2) absolutely love it, as do I! We also go to another group with a similar set up, which does one religious song and a goodbye song and the kids have toast at the end. They're £1 and £2 respectively. My husband takes the kids to a church group on Saturdays that is aimed at dads. Bacon butties and coffee for dads and mums get a lie-in 👍 No religious or musical element afaik.

I'm personally very grateful for these groups and the people who give up their time for free to run them. I think you'll probably enjoy them more if you go regularly, but the ones I've been to aren't cliquey at all! I always join in with the religious songs as I consider it part of UK culture and it seems the least you can do/ polite to do so. I'm not at all religious BTW. I would draw the line if there was an obvious evangelising aspect though, I'm not interested in that.

I went to one at my local church and there was no religious content - just nursery rhymes at the end. I expect they vary. Round me there are a couple of community run ones in hall not associated with churches. Also the libraries have Rhyme sessions.

Whilst not all church baby groups will be religious, but I certainly wouldn’t go along to one and expect no religion added into it somewhere.

It's been a while, but I don't recall any religious element to the one I took my kids to. There might have been a song or a little prayer at the end, but certainly nothing more than that. It was lovely and I was very appreciative of it, because I was struggling to make ends meet and it was the only free group available to me.

We have two in our neighbourhood. Both are fantastic. They have lots of space in their church halls and great toys. One has no religious content at all. One has some religious songs at the end I believe but many leave at that point and no offence is taken. Many are in churches simply because they have the space I think.

Thé one I go to with my son is lovely. Nice big room, good toys, tea and biscuits for £1, no religious content other than a few story books.

At work, as a nanny, I take my charge to something called ‘Puppet Praise’. That is full on. Bible stories performed through the medium of puppets. They do try and suss you out too to see if you’d be a likely candidate to attend the church properly too.

They’re all pretty different I think.