Let's have it all please - The National Childbirth Trust

[Rhiannon]

Lil, Croppy et al. The NCT is a national organisation there are over 400 branches. New branches being set up in Northern Ireland and Dundee at the moment. They are all over London. Everyone at your local NCT is a volunteer if you volunteer your services to set up a working Mum's group or any other type of group within the branch, I know they will be very grateful. If you don't like the women at the local branch go to the next one up the road it's not a problem. If you are having problems let me know where you are and I'll find out the contact names and numbers for you. Ask if they have Bumps and Babes which is a group especially to introduce people. As you can tell I am passionate about the NCT (I am not left wing or a veggie, I don't wear beads and I didn't even breast feed!). We welcome all newcomers so if you live near junction 25 of the M25 you are very welcome. Phew! Or just call head office on 0208 992 8637 for more advice.

Thanks Jens, I was getting a bit scared.

Our NCT group experience might be helpful here - when the babies were born, the NCT class supporter tried to arrange coffee mornings - we insisted that we hold them in the evenings so that the dads could attend (we were all working). This was great, and we met every week for the first 5/6 months, but then the babies started needing to be at home in their cots when they went to sleep - perviously, they could easily fall asleep in car seats.

Now, it's harder to meet up, but we make an effort to hook up about once a fortnight, usually on a weekend - all the mums and dads can get together (mums now working as well), and we're really good friends. There are lots of occasions when 2/3 of us (mums or dads) hook up to go to soft play in an afternoon, and an early finish on friday afternoon is popular.

So getting an NCT group together when people are working can be done, and I woud recommend to anyone who is doing NCT to organise the meet-ups to include working fathers from the start - that way, when mums go back to work, you'll have a set up that accomodates parents who work.

I'm with Jens on this.I can't believe all this rubbish about so called SAHMs.I have unknowingly been one of these for approximately 2 years and have also been a working mum, taking my daughter with me(as a nanny),I wonder what that is called!My attitude is as follows, some mums I like some I don't and I usually find out what they do after I've discovered this.I suggest a little understanding would go a long way as who knows what the future holds.One day a SAHM may have to become a working mum or vice versa and then who would they have coffee with?

Hooray, it's getting constructive at last.

I think I'd better go and cook something. My daughter's eating my son's birthday cake and it's not his birthday until Saturday! Aargh!

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Its a case of the old adage you can't judge a book by its cover'. We're basing our judgements on our own experiences which is fair enough. I know other working mums who really get on my tits with their smug attitude on how well they manage things and what the extra money provides, there are SAHMs who get on my tits with their smug attitude that they are providing the ideal environment for their completely well adjusted' offspring. I know full-time working mums I love/part-time working mums I love and SAHMs I love. I love them for being them and not their status. I envy each of them for the different things they have which I would like and vice versa - its natural to want what you can't have, or to aspire to something else. I'd like to work part-time, but for the foreseeable future its not going to happen. I know my sister would like to work part-time, but with 3 kids under three its not affordable or practical. I'd like to live by the sea - but I'm probably looking at retirement before that happens!

My way of looking at it is that you chose to be with people you like and if you don't like the people on your NCT/Toddler Group then you either put up and shut up for the sake of your child, or you don't go. Next time our town holds an activity day for toddlers I shall probably take a day off work and go again because although I didn't enjoy it, my son did and that's what is important to me.

Thanks for summing it up emmam. If and when I get a weekend group for parents going, I hope it will be seen as for everyone, whatever their family set-up. I'd love the chance to meet local parents as I haven't met a soul socially since we moved last September but it is also my son's interests I have in mind. It will be no time before he's at primary school and as all the other activities in the area are on weekdays it's the only way he'll meet other local children.

Emmam and Rhiannon, I don't disagree with your summary! But the point is, I think, that the NCT is supposed to be about parents and children supporting each other and socialising. Therefore if you join the NCT you expect its members to be bloody sociable whether an SAHM or non SAHMs!!You expect the members to put themselves out to make new members feel welcome. You expect that little bit more than you would get in a normal social setting. In my and clearly other peoples experience this isn't happening. Maybe more emphasis should be put on this in the newsletters, alongside its original ethos.

The more I read about the NCT, the more fascinated I'm becoming with it. LIke Lil, I would expect a group of NCT members to be a bit more welcoming and supportive than average, by virtue of them being members of the NCT. Like Emmam and others, I can see it's also all down to personalities in a group.

Marina, I too find my bit of south east london not the friendliest of places to move into - there's a distinct lack of nice places to eat and drink. My oldest is at schood and is old enough to play outside, and through this we are now making friends. Have you visited Oxleas Wood Cafe? It's got a really friendly atmosphere. Lots of dog-walkers, parents and children of all ages go there at weekends when it's fine. My toddler loves watching the dogs and older children on their bikes. Whenever I went there last summer, I usually knew someone by sight or got talking to someone interesting.

Lil

The way most NCT branches should introduce new Mums is through 'Bumps and Babes' coffee am/pms. These are aimed at new parents/new to the area to meet each other. No other people apart from the organiser should be there so all the people are there wanting to meet new friends. One or two of the people may have met the week B4 but there certainly shouldn't be any clique. The one thing they have in common is a new baby so they share experiences etc and hopefully want to meet each other again in their own homes. Well that's the ideal anyway.

Rhiannon, what about people who are new to the area, but are not new to parenthood ie have toddlers and older children? Do the bumps and babes meetings cover them?

Rhiannon, I thought bumps and babes was aimed at new mums, new in that they have just become mums, rather than new to the area! Do mums with older children go to these meetings then?

Lil, in our area anyone that wants to meet people comes to Bumps & Babes. If they have an older child then we try to team them up with someone who has a child of a similar age maybe a coffee group that's already running. It's usually 90% new Mums/bumps. Quite often people will come once or twice and we never see them again and you wonder what you did to upset them but then there's others who've come along to just about everything, paid the subscription and joined the committee so it's all worth while. We don't care if they work or not makes no difference, once set up the groups meet to suit themselves.

Tigermoth, yes I have, for over thirty-five years, off and on (aah). We have family snaps of me in knitted leggings clinging on to the cafe railings for dear life. We might have seen each other there last summer as me and my post-natal group pals spent several happy afternoons pottering through the woods from the cafe to the walled gardens and the castle. I love Oxleas Woods, it's so different to Greenwich Park and isn't it nice to have the choice of such contrasting green spaces? Somewhere I am going to investigate local to me is the cafe at Avery Hill Park, which I am told does smashing food. I will report back. (I can also recommend the Acropolis Taverna, also in New Eltham, as a family-friendly place serving good food. Not too handy for your part of the borough I'm afraid, but worth the trip.) As a lifelong SE Londoner I agree with you about the lack of friendliness and nice places to eat. I have also lived in N London, Birmingham, France and Sheffield and only France came close for lack of approachability. Muswell Hill was definitely more neighbourly.

I found my local Bumps & Babes group a real life-line. Being fairly new to the area, working all the time, and shy, I didn't have any friends in the local area when my son was born and my relatives live miles away. I went along to Bumps & Babes when my son was 6 weeks old and stayed as long as possible. From this group I discovered a coffee am/pm group in my area and this has led to one good friendship and will hopefully result in more in the future.

The only thing I do regret is not attending NCT Antenatal classes. These classes seem to be the way that a lot of people form close friendships with other mums with children of similar ages. I attended NHS classes and the opportunity to make friends didn't exist. My next task is to meet people with children of similar age to my son.

Yes, the NCT does have its cliques but what group doesn't? It's human nature to divide up into groups and stick with those you know. Pregnancy, childbirth, new parenthood (and that also means subsequent children) are life changing events. As people gradually adapt to their new situation friendships formed through the likes of NCT either become stronger or fall by the wayside. The NCT provides an excellant means to meet people in the first instance. Once you have achieved this, who says you should stick to NCT run groups? If they are too cliquey, find one that suits you.

I went to NCT antenatal classes - it cost £100. The best thing about them was that I made friends with three other mums-to-be, and a year on from the births we are closer than ever. Well worth the £33.33 each we cost each other.
Can't speak as highly of the breast feeding counsellor. Yes she came out to the hospital, but her bedside manner left a lot to be desired. I'd had a horrendous labour, was in a terrible mental and physical state and my son was refusing to feed. She asked what had happened. I broke down in tears and told her the whole sorry story. "So what you're telling me is you've had a bit of a rough time and your having trouble feeding?" she asked. "No shit Sherlock" I nearly replied.

Hi Willow2

Sorry you had a bad time with your BF counsellor, maybe she'd had a bad day too. She came to the hospital on a voluntary basis, she was only paid her petrol money (if that). May be she'd been having a hard time with her own kids, who knows. But as volunteers trained BF counsellors are invaluable in the support they give and are unpaid unlike antenatal teachers (unless things have changed recently).

I'd just like to say that the NCT has helped me to find friends, and the bumps and babes sessions and mums nights out in my area are really good. The mums who join the NCT are fabulous, particularly the ones who subscribe and help with important things, like organising rotas, and putting together our local newsletters.

Unfortunately I can't share a positive response about the NCT ante-natal classes I attended. Every cliche was lived out during my course of classes. My teacher was totally negative about any form of pain relief (except gas and air if we were really desperate) during labour, instead advising us all to inhale lavender oil and try to get through most of it with 'pelvic rocking'. Whilst careful to go through all the alternatives, natural and managed, for the sake of covering her back, she made absolutely no attempt to hide her (very strong) viewpoints. She was horrified at our get together after all the babies in my group had been born, to discover that I was expressing milk to feed to my baby in a bottle rather than breastfeeding because I absolutely didn't like the feeling of breastfeeding and it just wasn't for me. Her words to me when I stated that it took an awful lot of time and effort to express every 4-5 hours and then bottle feed the milk, but that I was determined to perservere were 'Just don't expect any sympathy from me when your milk dries up'. I was made to feel guilty and like a leper - an 'unnatural mother'. It finished her off altogether to discover that I had tried almost every form of pain relief going, had asked for an epidural, and had furthermore agreed readily to the use of forceps and to an episiotomy. Her whole attitude was that, if we didn't do it her way, we had failed. I think it is a shame that my first experience of the NCT had to be so negative for me. As you can see, I am still upset about it now, and my son is over a year old! Thank goodness some of the other mums made it bearable for me, and encouraged me to stick with the group!

I think the moral of my story is to get out if you are uncomfortable in a group, and to join another one. There is surely a mum or mum to be out there who would get on splendidly withthat ante natal teacher, just as there were (thank goodness) lots of like minded mums and committee members for me to get on with in another local branch.

Sorry for the essay. That's the first time I have ever 'vented' about my experience like that.

I'm with all those people who have found the NCT a useful introduction agency. I have to say that I found the actual 'teaching' bit of it fairly useless. Being bent over the teacher's kitchen units breathing through pretend contractions simply does not prepare you for labour! In fact it is slightly misleading because you think that you are prepared because you have been to these classes and you are not. I thought the hospital ante-natal classes were much better from that perspective.
However, I have made some really great 'local' friends through NCT who I would probably never have found otherwise. I would have found the early days much harder to deal with if it had not been for the support of these friends.
Through my local doctor's surgery I was asked to join another 'new mum' group and it was horrendous. So, it really is luck whether you find these things a help or hinderance.

Hi Rhiannon,

I know that my breastfeeding counsellor was an unpaid volunteer and appreciate that she came out to see me at the hospital. However, I would have thought that, having gone that far, an ounce or two of sympathy would not have gone amiss.

I don't want to go in to detail, but a year on from my son's birth I am still having to deal with the medical horrors that I suffered and will have to do so for the rest of my life, so if anyone needed a shoulder to cry on it was me. Frankly I'd have got more compassion out of a dead fish.

Admittedly she might have been having a bad day - but I very much doubt it came anywhere close to the one I was having. Anyway, surely one of the most important aspects of being a good counsellor is to leave your own problems at home and not take them to work - and if you can't do that why bother? Your job, paid or unpaid, is to help people in distress, not make things worse.

That's not to say I don't recognise the enormous amount of good that the NCT has done in general, just this time it was more harmful than helpful.

Willow2, oh dear, sounds awful, hope you're on the mend.

Willow2 - sorry to hear your awful story in terms of both the birth and the unhelpfulness of the b/feeding counsellor. Our NCT b/feedign counsellor was utterly useless. Couldn't answer a single question on the subject - her knowledge was probably 5% of Eulalias!.

I 've never had anything to do with the NCT for 2 reasons, one being that I do work outside the home out of financial neccessity and therefore am not around during the day. The other reason is my sister's experience. She attended NCT ante natal classes and became acquainted with a number of other local expectant mums. My nephew was born with multiple disabilities(heart defects, hearing, sight and co-ordination difficulties, and a facial palsy). Despite his problems,and having made it through several major ops in his first weeks, he is a lovely little boy, active and cheerful. It is, however, obvious that he is different from 'normal' babies.
Once he was out of hospital, my sister decided to take him to an NCT group reunion. It was the first and last time. Her son was initially stared at,and then ignored. my sister was not included in any of the 'boasting' conversations that all new parents have, even though I think she probably had more to boast about than most, having a son who is flourishing despite all his disadvantages. And this treatment was at the hands of a bunch of reasonably intelligent and knowledgeable women!
I realise that this is not the fault of the NCT, but even so, any group of people who feel that a disabled child and his mum cannot join in with 'normal'mums and babies are beneath contempt.
Grrrr! I get angry thinking about it even now - my nephew is now 3 years old and doing brilliantly1