To NCT or not to NCT?

[elgoldenflower]

I'm 14 weeks and I'm trying to decide on antenatal classes (pronto as they'll get booked up soon) and loads of people are recommending NCT particularly for the support network it creates. DP and I are a little unsure as we're not big social group people (although I am maybe more than him).

We're also really interested in some local Yoga based birthing classes for the really practical and meditative tools we might learn for the birth, obviously money's a consideration as both cost.

Any thoughts or advice that might help our decision would be gratefully received. Thank you

Thank you all you wonderful MNers! Wonderful and varied opinions as always. I'm going to talk it through more with DP and decide by the end of the week.

Still unsure as my NCT would be very local but would cost around £180. Yoga birthing classes would be £60 over 2 weekend days with the option of going to prenatal yoga and or Mum and baby yoga afterward (for extra cost of course). I was thinking of dropping in to a La Leche League group before baby gets here too to get advice on BF.

I'm also in the fortunate position of having DP at home mostly with me while I'm on mat leave then he'll be a SAHD when I go back to work.

So really tough decision when I think how far £120 goes when we need lots of baby stuff and I want to learn to drive ASAP. Will let you know what I decide.

Managed to get price down as the cost included the membership which I have not bothered with.

Now trying to work out if ideal to do or not as they have moved the course to earlier in pregnancy so will be with women at different stages AND in the next town so will be a 14 mile round trip for a class that ends at 930pm!! I'll be knackered by then! I really wanted to do them but it's not been as straightforward as I would have hoped...

I honestly thought NCT classes were a waste of money in terms of content (GBP285 for 2 days including membership fees and no breastfeeding session as promised??). I have read a few pregnancy, breastfeeding and childcare books previously and didn't learn anything new from these 2 classes... However, I met a few very nice women and will probably keep in touch with a couple of them. I took a one day hypnobirthing class prior to NCT and thought that it was much more helpful. My conclusion --- if you do not have time for books and do not intend to return to work straight after birth / need pregnant friends, then NCT... Otherwise, forget about it...

We did NCT, and I think it was very good, far superior to the NHS classes. You have a lot more time to ask questions and discuss things in detail and to address specific issues (should there be any).
I had also read a lot of books/internet etc., but there were still a lot of things that I hadn't come across before.

And more importantly, it was really good for DH to get information, meet other people in the same situation and realise that there are a lot more ways for him to contribute and get involved with that he had thought! He became very keen to get involved and is now a lot more clued up. Don't underestimate the value of that!

And of course, the bonus is meeting other mums-to-be. Our group was quite small, unfortunately, but we've already started meeting up for coffee/lunches/dinners on a regular basis. It's great to have someone who will not get bored by endless pregnancy- and baby-related discussions.

If you decide to give the NCT antenatal classes a miss, it might be worth finding out if your local NCT also does postnatal sessions (basically a group of groggy mums with 3 month olds getting together to talk about baby stuff guided by a leader who ensures all the 'big' topics get covered over the course of sessions).
I made some fantastic friends that have lasted over 7 years, the cost was a lot cheaper, and it's a great way of getting out of the house on a regular basis with a tiny baby.

I'd like to second what JBrd said - for me, the value wasn't so much in the content delivered during the course (I'd done a lot of reading), but in the chance to discuss and reflect and involve my DH: whilst he'd read a bit, it had all been very tailored to men and their practicalities eg choosing car seats, cleaning cat poo etc, and until the breastfeeding class for example, we hadn't even had a conversation about the topic. So, it opened up a lot of conversations between us about our feelings and expectations which we might not have had without the class, and he was able to spend some time with blokes in a similar position and to reflect on the points of view of the other dads in the class.

First extra curricular meeting of the NCT mums from our course this afternoon but get the impression we will keep in touch with each other, we already have a facebook group which means we can bore each other (rather than the rest of our friends) with the minutiae of midwife appts etc. Re timing, there are about 8 weeks between the earliest and latest due dates on our course. This doesn't feel like a problem - there are 3 from our class of 8 couples all due around the same time as us. Our class did not start until I was at 34wks by which time I'd already started mat leave, I'm not sure I'd have managed evening classes and my normal 5.30am starts to commute to work.

We also took membership of the local NCT and indeed as another poster said made this back with the 30min advanced entry to the nearly new sale, and I would like to get more involved locally when I've got the hang of LO during my mat leave. Whilst it seemed a lot to spend out at the time, I wanted to prioritise this as the money went out relatively early compared with everything else, and we thought about other things that were less important to us for similar costs eg didn't bother with a 4D scan and were gifted a cot, etc.

I would do the NCT course, but if you want a local support network you can also contact your local NCT even if you don't do the course - NCT groups hold regular teas and all sorts of social events, many of which should be open to non members as well. As the post natal course I went to with my first baby and the antenatal course with my second weren't very local to me, the local tea groups are more valuable, and we actually set up a new branch in my area which has been great for organising more local socialising.

Also, while you will of course need to buy some baby items, there are lots of options for cutting your costs - remember, lots of stuff is only needed for a short time, and many parents make some mistakes (there are threads here on what was useful and what was a waste of money). You can get a lot of stuff on Freecycle/freegle, do go to your local NCT nearly new sales, and I found we were given so much stuff with our first that we could have got away without buying many clothes at all. You can also experiment with cheap/free stuff for some things and decide what you really want to buy when baby's here.

If you still have children's centres, do support any campaign to save them, and ditto with bf support etc.

Did the NCT course, met some nice enough people who, a few months down the line, I still see very occasionally. The NCT is very keen to promote what they believe in (bf, natural birth for example) but do not, ime, give you any information on anything else (CS,ff).
It depends if you have the money, if you do, why not but if you don't there are other ways to build a supportive network of friends. If you don't have the money, don't bother it's really not that great!

I would say give it a go if you have the money spare, very spare.
I had a not so great an experience with NCT. I couldnt do the evening classes as I was commuting and busy at work. My local town did not have one at all for babys due in the month mine was. So I joined an intensive course (weekends) for a town 3 miles away.
The course was quite useful. Only quite useful. - but overall not a great course at all.

What I wish I had done is take a course in how to look after the baby!

I have name changed to tell you about this because it is really difficult to talk about. I made a big effort and organised the 1st get togeather after the course and before the babys were due. Then after that I invited people round for lunch, one at a time as I have a small home. I didnt get one invitation back. It was terrible. (The house is very clean, I am very nice and I put on a great lunch just in case you were wondering- no really I am!)
I was left off emails, I wasnt invited to things and people didnt repy to my emails. The only reason I can think of for this was I was really quite different from the rest of them in terms of money. They were all professional and well off with 4X4's and big houses in a well off area. While I have a very small house and no car.
They cut me clean out!
Its 3 years ago now and I am still upset about it. Although it was probably for the best as I couldnt discuss nannies, gym membership and skiing holidays. It was like a social club I couldnt afford to be in.

That's awful greasypudding!!!

Well I got my price down but then the course is in a different town so meet ups would prob mean travelling more than i would like when am on very little money!!

Starting to think that I wont bother again. Plus if I got a bad group I would be gutted!!

goeasy, that's a terrible experience, I'm sorry. JimmyChoo, whether or not you do the course do find out about local NCT tea groups in your own town, you don't have to do any course or even join the NCT to get to one of those. I still feel that my NCT courses were worth doing (the postnatal one more so than the antenatal, and it was only £60) but being too far away is a real disadvantage when it comes to meeting up.

Lots of midwives run private antenatal classes with small groups in loads of towns around the country too so look into that on local boards etc. Basically like NCT but with midwives teaching everything from homebirth to emergency c/s . May be another option for you

I missed the evening NCT classes for our due date - already booked up (at 13 weeks!), and it was in a town about 5 miles away to begin with. Offered a different evening set which finished on due date (not that helpful, ever the optimist). Thought we were stuffed as there's no hospital classes over the summer (!) until we found a midwife-led series locally. Have heard positive things from friends of friends, so hopeful it will be what we're after

I enjoyed NCT and get on with all the women I met there. We are all very different (personality and circumstance wise) but still love to meet up regularly now. I was the only one who went for a home/natural birth and all the others enjoyed the course too. I tried the NHS hospital classes but walked out after 20 minutes when they said - don't bother coming inot hospital unless you're in lots of pain! Not my idea of a positive birth experience

I'm having similar worrries Jimmy. I start my NCT antenatal class on sunday but it's in the next town and I'm worried that will make meeting up diffcult, or make me feel a bit left out if everyone else is local. The only other option was a weekend class that was more local but finished within a couple of weeks of my due date and the NCT woman suggested it would be better to do an earlier course. I've decided to go ahead with the NCT class even though it's a bit far away, and I'll probably look for a coffee group to make more local friends.

Well funnily enough I joined my local nct Facebook group and have already been invited to a session with experienced mums and nct person but it's all free...just bring cake! They do several meets all they ask is if you can sometimes play host which I can do easily and it's fairly shared out but in my town. Some are just social some are to give advice, info and experience of other mums.

I'm up for that :-)

Unless they come back to me with a nearer venue I am not going to do nct classes the costs of meeting up with those mums longterm would not be ideal and if I'm honest the service and response from our local sales rep has also put me off!

JimmyChoo, I'm very glad to hear contacting the local group worked. Hope you have lots of fun.

Just read goeasy's message. I'm appalled!

A similar thing happened to my friend with a Brixton NCT class a few years ago. She was so lovely, lived in a very nice new apartment block and her husband was a lawyer. She'd decided to give up work as a junior editorial assistant in publishing to be a full time mum whereas the others were trendy driven career women in high profile media posts.

I was so shocked that they treated her like that. It doesn't take much to put out an extra cup and slice of cake! And I'm sure their children would have benefitted from growing up being friends with other kids from different walks of life.

Having said that, my view has always been that if people want to be cliquey and exclude you then you are definitely better off without them!

If you aren't a joiner, NCT might help as you are kind of forced into it. Suspect its much harder to 'join' into a group when you're feeling frail and anxious with small baby in tow at playgroup, where everyone knows each other and have huge scary toddlers.

That said I didn't do NCT. Made friends through fantastic midwife NHS course and HV led early parenting group. Info and support I got from brilliant book - Blooming Birth by Lucy Atkins and Julia Guderian - cheaper than any course but really good at preparing your head for birth and immediately after.

We did NCT classes during my first pregnancy 3.8 years ago, they were ok. I was 28, my partner 37 and I was the youngest in my group. I met up with a few of the ladies a handful of times after we'd all given birth but I'm no longer in touch with them. I ended up with a crash csection and was unable to breasfeed for various reasons/complications. My NCT class did not cover bottle/formula feeding, and only just touched on csections. I came out of my classes feeling I was going to have the most natural birth and a smooth time...how wrong I was.

I don't regret paying for them at all, I looked forward to going and it made my partner feel involved. I also liked the fact the groups were small, seeing the same people each week was nice too. Just to talk to couples going through the same thing is a comfort in itself. I only wished I'd perhaps attended an NHS class in addition for the reasons I give above, not being able to breasfeed etc.

I am pregnant with my third baby but won't be doing any other NCT classes.

I would I found the classes much better than NHs ones,we made friends some of whom I still have many years later and who were brilliant at looking after DC1 when DC2 was premature and I had to visit hospital twice daily for weeks.