NCT - Is the cost worth it?

[Lavitabellissima]

I am in two minds about whether to go on my local NCT course.

I am a first time mum so know it will all be useful to me. Plus I am keen to meet other mums.

However in my area the course will cost £250 that's without paying the extra £39 to join the NCT. Am I alone in thinking that the cost is a bit excessive? it works out at about £24 per hour to be on the course.

There are 3 price ranges depending on postcode and mine falls into the highest bracket.

What do you think? am I being tight? I would be grateful for any advice.

you don't need to join the nct i'm pretty sure. i think i paid about £160 round here and got six really, really, really good pals out of it... so if you take it as a cost per pal it was sooo worth it.

That's a nice way of looking at it, if I too make 6 friends they will cost me about £41 each not bad

Yes my friend did NCT in London and got three really good friends out of it and she advised me to do it purely for this reason.

Mine start at the end of August and I REALLY hope there is at least one other woman that I like there. It would be nice to meet someone else due around the same time in the same area.

I made some great friends through NCT and we still all get together almost 18 months later. It is expensive, no doubt about it but there were no alternatives available in our area so I took the plunge. DH gets on with the other partners too which is a bonus!

I had the same dilemma. I really felt like I would be paying £250 for friends and that what if there was no one I clicked with! Instead we did the free NHS one - which was informative but I am still a billynomateswithkids. I don't know anyone who has done NCT who hasn't made friends in one way or another. And they all say how invaluable it is in the first few months to have people to talk to about poo!

However, I have also been told that you can contact NCT co-ordinators and ask to be put in touch with people (without even joining) so I might try that.

you can, but ime there is a real bonding thing that comes through the classes. our group never bothered with any more nct stuff after the classes, just hung out with each other.

I'd highly recommend it for the friends you're likely to make. We still meet regularly 2 years on and in the first few weeks after DD was born having a reason to get out of the house to meet up made life much easier. Plus it makes for a great baby sitting circle!

i definitely recommend doing the NCT course whatever the cost. we had such fun on our course and have made lasting friendships. Three years on i still see two of the girls regularly and we've been on holiday several times with one of them and her husband and son.
we were six couples, and all of us gave birth to boys, within ten days of each other. we all lived within a few miles of each other, and spent a lot of time together during our maternity leave, and were always texting each other for advice/support.
we held joint first and second birthday parties for our boys.
I think £250 is a small price to pay for what you will hopefully get out of it.

Don't forget you to join a post-natal support group - that's how i made my friends as we couldn't get onto the ante-natal courses. and this was free
Didn't even need to join the NCT.
You meet at a NCT members house for five or six weeks have a coffee/tea and chitchat all very informal. We all clicked and continued to meet regularly.
So there are other options, but i would have done ante-natal if I could have got a spot

I found the course so much better than the local NHS course - I think if I hadn't done NCT, I wouldn't feel nearly as confident about the birth, looking after baby, breastfeeding etc. DP also got loads out of it, more than me I expect, he went from not even wanting to be present at the birth, to being more excited about it than me!
I think it may depend on how good your local NHS class is (some seem to be great, mine was dire) and also on how good your local NCT teacher is - mine was awesome.

@ "they all say how invaluable it is in the first few months to have people to talk to about poo!" - it's funny because it's true!

I agree, have made excellent friends with my NCT group, the girls go out for dinner once a month and the dads go out once a month too, as well as the normal get togethers with babies during the day, plus we are just in the process of setting up a babysitting circle which I am really excited about. The support I have had has been invaluable.

I also signed up for an 'early days' course which started when DD was a week old - having had a tricky birth I missed the first week but went along a couple of times after that. For me, it was totally irrelevant - try having a sensible discussion on things like weaning when you have a 2 week old baby - most of the other babies were a LOT older than mine and I felt that 'early days' was a complete misnomer. I was hoping for something to help me get through those actual early days when you feel like you are in the twilight zone! But not so.

I just did my NCT course last week and I have to say it was fantastic. We'd been warned to take it all with a pinch of salt but to use it as an excuse to make some other mummy friends. Well I have to say the course was excellent - not preachy at all and my husband now feels really engaged with the whole process and we feel much better prepared.

We also seem to have had a really great group and are all meeting for dinner this week, along with our hubbies. Think it could be the start of a beautiful friendship!

Our course cost £250 and it was worth every penny in my opinion...

I did the course but didn't join as a member. You could do that as well?

we are halfway through our block of NCT classes at the moment. the other couples are all really nice, and hopefully it will give me some baby orientated socialising to do during maternity leave when DH is at work, as I will know a group of women with babies about the same age as mine. because of that, I think it is worth the money, however, content-wise, I am far from impressed. There is NOTHING we have been taught so far that you don't already know if you have read a few books and use MN. Also, the teacher has said quite a lot of things I really don't agree with and I am not sure whether I feel I can really trust her judgment on things!
So I would go to meet other people in the same boat, but not for the educational value, unless you haven't bought any books and are totally clueless, which I am sure is not the case since you are on here!

oooh you realy should! So good for meeting ppl and so useful. I thought it was brill!

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I would definitely reccomend it. I'm still in touch with all but 2 out of our group and we meet pretty regularly. I have heard the NHS course near us was pretty rubbish and no-one chatted or got to know eachother. It's such a godsend when you're a new mum and need the support in the early days- and then 18 months on we're still swapping advice and having a moan about sleep problems, eating, behaviour etc. If you don't have any friends who are either off work or have babies then I'd say it's almost essential as you'll find your 'usual' friends are at work whilst you're off on your own.

I'm also half-way through and I have learnt stuff about the birth but some exercises I find patronising and the teacher can be repetitive, dull, with plenty of awkward silences. Our teacher goes on and on about questioning authority within the NHS, whilst giving birth etc but she's not at all open to anyone questioning what she says

Having said that, the other people on the course are great. I like hanging around people who are pregnant the same time as me. My DP is now - as others have said - much more connected to the pregnancy/birth and he loves the classes much more than me and basically it just helps to think about he birth for 2 hours a week.

We couldn't decide about NCT due to the cost - also the highest bracket (and in the end they were so pushy for us to sign up we said NO and just did the NHS antenatal classes).

I'd say the NHS classes weren't great for content or delivery and you'd probably have already learnt more through the books/videos on YouTube (or One Born Every Minute).

However, they were good for meeting other couples and just discussing concerns about birth/babies and because several people made an effort to collate email addresses several of us are still in touch and signed up to Baby Massage/Sensory Classes together and arranging meetups BUT if you weren't prepared to approach other couples and ask about going for a coffee afterwards (or if the area you are in isn't convenient for this sort of thing) then it would be more difficult as they didn't really encourage people to

Those who did the NHS classes who also did NCT said the content and delivery was fantastic and because they are a small group they've all kept in touch and I think were encouraged to so they're definitely well rated just a bit expensive for us.

Thanks for all your comments, I think I will just take the plunge

Go for it, and make sure your partner attends as well. Dads get given some good information and insight, and for me personally the session on "what to expect if you need surgical intervention" was a godsend when DW needed an emcs with DS1. Without it I'd've been left on my own in a paralysed state of panic in my hospital-issue noddy suit not knowing what the hell was going on and thinking I'd been forgotten about. That was worth the money alone!

There should be a free/cheaper group run by your hospital that you could go to as well/instead. Might be worth looking into?

oh, and buy a hammock and a baby bucket bath thing... two godsends. apart from that all you need is 150million white babygros and some nappies, a sling and a pushchair. nothing else necessary.

Just a question, we moved into our area almost a year ago. My DD is 2.8 now and I am expecting our second. I am also looking into contacting NCT but wondering because I am mum already that it will feel wasted. My main reason would be to make friends for both DH and I as we dont really have friends with kids. Any advice on that please? Thanks

It was worth it for me. Good information, which would have been even more crucial if we'd had a C-section, as it really prepared us for what might happen. I made good friends in my group and all 9 of us are in frequent contact 2.5 years on. Some of us see one another 2 or 3 times a week, depending on work, etc. We also really enjoyed the NCT bumps and babies groups for the first few months. You don't have to be an NCT member to attend these though, and they're free. I think there are usually more non-NCT members present, anyway. Of course, you will also bond with parents you meet at the NHS classes, though (depending on the class) they tend to be over with pretty fast, so there often isn't the time to gel and make friends. NHS classes often have the additional benefit of including a hospital tour, though a lot of those are being discontinued.

I'm always shocked at the variation of cost for classes though. I suppose it has to reflect the booking costs of premises in various parts of the country. Have never come across a 'banding system' dependent on postcode before though. Just a subsidised rate for people on lower incomes. You don't need to join the NCT to do the classes, but I think you usually get a discount on the classes if you do.

Membership gets you into the famous, and useful, Nearly New Sales early (which can be crucial if you're after something specific) but as an NCT volunteer myself, I'm bound to say that you get even earlier access to the goodies if you volunteer to help out for the entire sale!

Most NCT classes are well-taught and very balanced - there might be a few teachers out there who are still living up to the stereotype of anti-hospital, anti-drugs etc, but they are in the minority. The main ethos of the NCT is to offer parents information, not to tell them what to do - they assume you're intelligent and will make up your own mind. They are also very committed to putting forward evidence-based advice, but again, the onus is on you to decide what to do. If you felt that your classes were skewed towards anti-hospital, etc, you would be well within your rights to complain, and the teacher would be spoken to, maybe retrained.