is it worth me booking nct class if we're planning to move area?

[emeraldgirl1]

I am investigating NCT (and other!) antenatal courses in my current area but we are planning (if we ever get round to specifics!) a move to a different area, further out of London.
Really what I am hoping to get from an antenatal class is to meet a few mums to be and not be so scared of being a bit isolated once the baby comes. (not saying all the practical stuff isn't useful but I have just about enough experience of babies etc to be able to muddle through on that front).
But I am concerned that I will join a group and then find the social aspect of it fairly redundant by the time we move to a new area. This could be any time from a short time before the baby is born to (hopefully) a few months afterwards.
I can't join a class in the new area because we don't yet know exactly where that is going to be.
Am really just asking for advice and a bit of a What Would You Do? Go ahead and join a class even if you end up moving a month before the baby even arrives...??
Thank you!!

Hiya - I had to make this decision too. We did know where we wanted to go, so I booked an NCT class there and just hoped that we would be able to move in time to make it (luckily we are). I believe that you can transfer your booking to a new place (but only if there are places available). It's worth just calling the NCT and asking their advice on the issue - they were very helpful and it doesn't seem to be an issue transfering membership, etc to the new area. Good luck!

Thanks Novia. I'll try giving them a call. :)

I booked for the new area, we moved when I was about 34 weeks.

If you want to talk through labour, birth and options then the NCT class is great for that, so if the cost isn't an issue then I would go to the one near you anyway. But you're right, the social aspect is probably the main reason why people pay for the courses and I prefered going to the course where I was going to live, so I knew people in the area.

Do you have any idea when you might make a decision about moving? I'm just asking as I actually found the whole move quite stressful - not the move itself, but having to change doctors and midwives and hospitals and everything so near to my due date, I had a lot of problems seeing a mw at the right time after I moved and ended up not having a hospital tour or really knowing anything about the hospital until I turned up in labour. No reason why you would find it so stressful, that was me panicking, but I'm just thinking about all the other things to organise as well as making friends.

However, as someone who moved to a brand new area with no friends at all just before having a baby, I've made a lot of friends separately from my NCT group. You can meet people online on the local boards here and also on the rival site's messageboards, sometimes the NHS runs free classes where you meet other new mums, people are friendly at baby groups etc., the NCT often have Bumps & Babes groups where you can meet people too.

But calling the NCT to ask their advice would be sensible too.

Nelly thank you!

I am glad to hear people are friendly at baby groups - I am fairly shy with new people and so far have found the women in my antenatal yoga class to be either very cliquey with the women they already know or not very willing to return a smile or an exchange of small talk. :( I didn't join the class planning to make buddies for life but I thought a bit of chat might occur - makes me nervous that mum and baby groups might be like this.

Could be specifically related to certain areas of London though...

Yes am dreading a move as I am utterly hopeless with organisation and in many ways would rather leave even thinking about it til after baby is born but I think we do need to get our act into gear as bit as we are desperate for space. Luckily it won't affect anything like hospital, MW etc as being in London we will still be close enough geographically to attend the same place IYSWIM, it is just that it will be in a very different area from a daily life point of view. Of course I know I would be able to drive or bus it a few miles from new area to old to see any pals I had made but realistically in London those things never seem to happen. Crazy really but just a fact!

True, baby groups can seem a bit cliquey at first, but you just need to go a few times and try a few groups. All the groups are different. I used to 'follow' people who were friendly - if I did chat to someone at one group, I'd casually ask what else they went to, and then turn up there too...

I've got the same problem. Moving to a new area where I know no-one in a couple of weeks. I'm going to wait until we move to book classes but I'm stressing about changing midwives, docs and hospital.

Zigwig, my advice is just to stand in the doctors surgery and refuse to move until they do something! My problems happened because it was over Christmas and so I never made it into the mw's plans for covering their patients when they were on holiday. Other than that, the receptionists were wonderful and gave me the tip to essentially lie about feeling dizzy etc to get a GPs appointment and get bp and everything checked if the mw's were hard to get hold of.

Right that sounds like a plan nelly. I'm worried I'll drop out the system so I might go to my next mw appointment I have at the start of Dec even though it means travelling all the way to my old area. I'll get info on new docs asap, then soon as I move just go in and plead pregnancy until they fit me in .