OMG! £309 for NCT course!!!!

[saltnvinigarcrips]

Live in Ealing and enquired about NCT courses. Got a letter today and it said it will be £309. Is that not madness? Needless to say I won't be booking. Is it really worth that much ladies?

You're kidding? I knew there was a reason I never bothered wih the NCT!

My friend paid about £250 which I still think it far too much. Would rather spend it on the baby!

I know she has actually made life long friends and from what she says, the info given is far superior to the crappy NHS ante natel classes but I got all my info from books and magazines and done very well without NCT.

I also think they can be a bit snobbish (not my friend though, she did say they were definitely the poor ones of the group) as its more a middle class thing.

Mine cost £180 and that included a years membership, so I could get into the nearly new sales early and snap up bargains. So it was well worth it for me. £309 seems extortionate though.

LOL at all responses. I'm glad it's not just me thinking it's ridiculous. Tbh i'm tempted to write to them and give them a piece of my mind, especially as it is supposed to be a charity organisation!!!
Yes, NHS here I come ...

That does seem a lot. I never did them but I had in mind it was around 170-180 too.

I was going to do NCT as thought I could make some mum friends but it is £280! Will join a coffee morning instead. I thought the prices on their website of £8 per session was reasonable - not sure how it jumped to £280

I know what you mean. Mine will cost £314 if I go ahead. This includes membership to NCT. I'm still not 100% as to whether to do it or not as it is a huge amount of money. It seems amazing that they can charge so much!

They make loads of money. I sold some stuff at their nearly new sale once. I bought the sellers pack then they told me they take 40% of what you make!!

I carried on but wouldn't sell through them again. I think they are a rip off.

I paid £120 3 years ago

If you want to make friends contact the branch and ask about what they offer, you don't need to be a member or do their classes to make friends through the NCT.

Incidentally, the local branches aren't funded by the money from membership or the antenatal classes (it goes towards the NCT helplines, and the training of antenatal teachers and breastfeeding counsellors amongst other things including paying the antenatal teachers for teaching the classes), so don't make assumptions about them being rolling in it or ripping you off either. Anything they run locally will be done so by unpaid volunteers.

I paid around £195 and that included a years membership. I am not in London though.

It is not all about the information given as you can obviously get that from books and NHS classes.

You meet some like-minded people and I didn't want to be in an NHS class with people I had nothing in common with or who were a lot younger than me.

It is personal preference and depends what you want to get out of it.

Ours was £150 without the membership. Was the only way DP would be able to come to classes as NHS ones are all during the day and not handy for him to get to.

It all depends on where you live.

I'm paying over £200 and didn't think that was too bad really for 7 sessions.

I guess it partly depends whether you think that 1, the NHS classes will give you what you want (e.g. they're often not good for making friends as different people go to each class in many cases) and 2, whether you think that everything baby related should be free to you. I bet the NHS classes actually cost the NHS quite a bit!

We paid £154 including a year's membership and we're in Home Counties Commuterland. I made some really good connections to other mums in the area, but was WOEFULLY unprepared for childbirth as c section was something that was coughed over - our very judgemental leader said "And we'll cover c section along with other things that can go wrong.".
I didn't know I'd have lochia, and didn't know I'd have afterpains and thought I was delivering a twin that everyone had missed! Pah!

I am a bit shocked at the cost. Not sure how it can be justified, especially when C-section is vilified.
Glad I didn't bother.

I can't say it was villified in my group but there was an assumption that we would all avoid it at all costs, that it's a last resort and that it's utterly ghastly, horrible and terrible to recover from, and if we all tried very very hard, we wouldn't have to have one.
Actually, maybe that is villified...

We covered ceasareans very thoroughly.

Our NCT teacher was great. Really lovely and well informed with a good sense of humour and not judgy or preachy at all.

Daisystone, I kind of thought we'd covered it thoroughly at the time, but it was only when I had one that I realised I didn't know what the hell was going on, and what I did know, I picked up from outside of NCT!

Wow, that's crazy money.

We paid about £100 5 years ago. To be honest was the best thing we did, made life-long friends and recived useful information. I would recommend it to anyone.

We were the 'poor ones' of our group
Some of the others have huge incomes/houses but all were absolutely fantastic, couldn't have met a nicer group of girls.

Hard to say if I know everything about a c-section until I have one (if I do).

I would have thought it was also the responsibility of the doctors and midwives to keep you informed as well though. NCT can only cover so much as there is only so much time.

I would be more pissed off with my doctor if I were you.

There are reduced rates for people on low incomes - I think one of the ways to qualify is if you get free prescriptions. Brings course cost for antenatal classes down to around £2/class I think.

However, like Missingmevino, I have made some very good friends, DH was able to come with me as classes were evening/week end and got some excellent advice/information. Particularly the "C Section Role Play" in which I was the mother. If I had not done that, I would have totally freaked out that there were 12 people in the theatre when I ended up with an emCS a month later.

Our teacher was very expereinced, down to earth and not preachy - v factual.

Although our joint income was, at the time, about £65K we were the poor ones too. But actually, this doesn;t really matter now (2 years on). What matters is that we all have children the same age.

NCT branches also run coffee groups and "Bumps and Babies" groups, so you still have a "way in" without doing the classes.

When I had DS1 about 6 years ago the NCT didn't run courses in the local area in August, so I didn't have the option. No idea what the cost was, but I would have died if it was that much! The only other option was the free NHS classes, which was absolutely fine. I am still friendly with 3 of the mums I met there. And the town where I lived then (Portsmouth) was of a size that I kept bumping into the NCT mums anyway.

Daisystone, I think it's absolutely the responsibility of an organisation which allegedly sets out to inform, educate and fight for women's birth rights, to educate me about c section, especially after they'd been happy to take my money! And given that around a quarter of ALL births end up as a section, not having enough time is unacceptable and a total cop out!! They should have dedicated er, maybe, a quarter of the time available, no?!

Hmm, well it does sound like lots of you had great experiences so that makes me sad I can't afford it. Don't think either of us will be able to go to NHS classes if they are during the day which is a bugger as I wanted to prepare DH for the birth as much as myself. There's only so much 'one born every minute' i can watch on 4oD.

Any good books you would recommend anyone then for preparing me for childbirth?