Day time housegroups with kids present?

[Smithagain]

A friend and I are contemplating starting up a day time, ladies only housegroup. Our church has a bit of a lack of small groups, partly because everyone is so busy. But we have a feeling that there might be a few mums (and indeed older ladies) who are home during the day, that would enjoy the fellowship and mutual support.

The trouble is, several of us still have pre-schoolers at home with us. I just don't know whether it is feasible to run something with children present, or whether some sort of baby-sitting rota is going to have to be organised alongside it.

Does anyone go to a functioning group that has children in the house at the same time. Or is there always a creche? We could meet in the church, where there is space, and a good supply of toys, but I'm not sure if we'd get the same, intimate atmosphere that you get in someone's house.

Experiences please!

FAQ started a thread a few days ago along similar lines but I shall repeat myself

I used to belong to such a group. The Mum who hosted had a conservatory/play room and we met in there brought the kids with us and it was FAB!!!!!!!!!!!! We didn't do a bible study but we all went with the attitude of bringing something to share and we prayed together.

The kids got used to it after a few weeks and pretty much got on with it!

I'd personally say it's good for your dc to see you fellowshipping/praying/studying together rather than always farmed out to a creche. It was the best small group I ever attended mainly because we all enjoyed going so were committed to going and got to really open up to one another so it meant prarying to the roots of peoples issues IYSWIM

I ran one with a friend last year.

We used her house as she had a separate playroom, although the children were free to come and sit with us if they wanted.

After a few weeks we asked a lady from my church with older teenagers if she would come and mind the children in the playroom. She brought a friend for company and it was a great arrangement.

Great idea - my group is such an encouragement to us all.

I have done every permutation of groups, location and childcare that you care to mention, and there are pros and cons to each. IME every mother is different as to how much noise she can tolerate from her own and other people's children while she is trying to think and talk, so it's hard to lay down hard and fast rules. But here are some options:

1. Creche, outside help. In many ways the best option but it does restrict you timewise and some people's kids won't be left with other people, so you have to find this out beforehand. If you have this option in someone's house (at the moment this is my situation) you have to be sure that the kids are content not to wander through to where you are meeting. You will probably find that any babes in arms don't go out to the creche anyway so you will still find some kid noise. And it can be hard to find willing creche helpers - in fact that has been our biggest problem over the years.

1. Creche, with some of you going out in turns each week. Not ideal to build group identity.

1. Creche at the church building. Definitely not as intimate but good for toys, etc. Have to work harder to get a good atmosphere. We are probably going to move back to our church building next term when some building work is finished.

1. No creche. Definitely the noisy option, unless the kids are old enough to stare at Cbeebies for an hour. Some people, especially older people who are out of the kids habit may find this too much. You may end up with this anyway if the kids won't stay in creche. But you can be more flexible in terms of time.

Sorry for the long post. Can you tell that I organise the daytime groups at church and have wrestled with these problems over many years?! All the best!

When I was going to a daytime homegroup, we always had a creche for small children. We would get one of the older ladies from church to run it.

If there are lots of young children, it works well to have a creche leader and then a rota from the group as a helper.

It's hard to staff a creche just from within your group, as the whole point is to get some adult time. A good formula we found was to start your study right on the arrival time, and to go for one hour - no more. After that, you would have your social time, including creche helpers and children.

I loved my bible study groups when I was first a SAHM. When former colleagues questioned my lack of stimulation, I soon put them right.

tassisssss hosts one of these - you need to track her down...

Agree with ST that if you have helpers, they should be part of the social time. We found cake to be an integral part of our group

our dc must have been wierd after a few weeks they pretty much played relatively quietly in the same room...............

Thanks all. Apologies for completely failing to notice the other thread! But this is definitely helpful in terms of different options for dealing with the wee ones.

I like the idea of having someone on hand to supervise the children for the first hour or so, then all getting together for cake. I can think of a few older ladies in the church who would grab the chance to play with someone else's children for an hour, with the opportunity to hand them back at the end

In which case, Smithagain, grab them and ply them with lots of cake because volunteers are worth their weight in gold!

Go for it! And I hope it is a great time for you all. Are you planning a structured look at something in particular or just seeing what everyone comes with. I hope you benefit lots from whatever you decide. My group is the highlight of my week.

hello, smithagain, as ja9 says, i organise a daytime housegroup for mums in our church. we have about 8 mums usually (though 9 today and 3 apologies!) and most of us have pre-schoolers (again about 9 today, think 3 mums had 2 with them and 3 came without littlies).

We meet in my home, which has a quite spacious downstairs. I encourage the older wee ones to leave us and play in the dining room where I set up toys but the reality is often the kids would rather be sat on our knees. We chat for a bit, do a bit of Bible Study (30 mins tops) then have coffee and cakes (of course) and I usually give the kids their snack at the kitchen table.

When I started the group I'd wondered if one of the mums would take it in turns to "babysit" the kids in the dining room during the study bit, but that's not been necessary. Us mums are well used to chatting while our wee ones play around us!

I've been to a similar group in the past that met in our church. SOme of the older church ladies (angels!) would look after the children while the mums disappeared off for 90 mins. Bliss!

Go for it and keep us updated!

(and if while you're all around you'd like to recommend decent material for such a group, please do!)

best part of my week too procrastinating. (beats church everytime ) Ours has been cancelled for the last two weeks

I posted on the other thread re the (small, informal) house group I go to. We only usually have 3 little ones and they generally play nicely. It can be a bit distractory but they are very good. More than that MAY be tricky, but I find most under 3s like to be with their mums and may upset carers by not wanting to stay with them.
Does anyone know if creche volunteers need to be CRB checked or anything?

here in scotland, we'd get our church creche helpers to be child protectioned, but don't know for sure if that's a legality.

smithagain, if you have willing helpers out there definately go for it, but even with 9 pre-schoolers under our feet here today it was a lovely time and a challenging (I thought!) study.

And I do agree with Cargirl, about how much children can gain from being with you while worshipping/praying. I love to hear my 2.10 DS playing Bible study!