NCT Classes - Really?

[Colabottle10]

So everyone and their goldfish has told me that we should enrol on the NCT course 'if only to make friends' etc. I have just been online and found that the nearest one to me is in the local city (which I'm 30mins away from and never go to and don't 'hang out' with people from there). Looked at booking and it's going to be £200 for 6 sessions. They wanted payment upfront too.

When I emailed to ask about paying in instalments I was told they would split it in 2 payments.....one now and one in a month. I'm only 15+3, we aren't buying any baby stuff until after the 20w scan just in case. So I have politely declined.

I live in a remote place which has a lovey small town around 20mins away. It's in this town that I'll be going to mother and baby groups and meeting friends for coffee etc etc....

Are the NCT classes REALLY worth it if the only positive is making friends.....but these would be people I have nothing in common with and won't ever see again as they are in the city and I never go there? Seems daft...

I went to nct classes, but only because there were no nhs one's in my local area.

Looking back... I would have paid thousands... 7 years on and I have made brilliant friends for life. We have a special bond. Some of the group have moved out of London, but we meet regularly, holiday together even....
Maybe we were a lucky group- but we have stuck together and I love them.
The dads also meet independently for drinks etc...
Do it- you have nothing to lose..(except the money😜!)

I did both the bus and nct. I met really good friends at the nhs. Completely didn't fit in with the nct lot at all, though it easily could have been the other way round. So glad I did meet a group of friends at one of them though.

It might not be the case now, but when I did the course three years ago part of the cost was a 40 charge to join nct which you can opt out of, I did as I wouldn't have benefited from membership.

I felt I learnt a lot more about labour at the nct course then I did on the nhs one. Whilst in labour I was really glad I'd done it. I'm godmother to the second child of one of the women I met on it, but don't see the other women at all.

Completely not worth it, if you have an ounce of education and have read any books/talked to anyone about childbirth you'll learn nothing new. We went to our first one, spent the time bored and patronised and never went to the others! It did astound me thought that some people didn't know the basic stuff, do your own research!

In your case I wouldn't bother. But check out facebook tofind out if there is anythu g mum and bump like near you.

We didn't do NCT first time round but they do a second timers cours for a fraction of the cost which I might do this time round. BUT it is very local for me.

Sparklycat, are you saying NCT are only for the uneducated?

Nice reading into my post there I am saying that if you have educated yourself sufficiently on the subject of childbirth then you are wasting your money/time going. Something lots of people have said before. I love that you read that to mean only 'uneducated' people go

But Sparklycat, I had read up on everything before going. We really just went to make friends. We knew nobody at all with a baby and had no family do I was very worried about being very lonely when baby came. It was a lifeline for me in those early weeks. If it hadn't been for my NCT group I wouldn't have spoken to anyone else as DH at work all day and I was at home. I don't know anyone that went to classes with a 2 or 3wk old so I would have been very lonely.

So maybe you were happy to have literally nobody to talk to but I wouldn't have been. Money well spent for me without a doubt.

I agree it's not about the content of the class. Nothing Google can't tell you (you will google everything anyway) it's the social aspect.

I lived in a town of 65000 people and they didn't have nct but the nearest city (where I was giving birth) half an hour away did. I knew that they would be a waste of time for the reasons you have mentioned. However in the next village there was a similar group being run by ex nct teachers to fill this gap. We ended up going there and made the friends which was brilliant. My suggestion is to ask your mw if there is a local alternative because as many others have pointed out the friends factor is worthwhile.

I agree with some of the other posters: in your situation it seems better to look for more local options.

My DH and I are about to sign up for classes - ours are spread over 2 Saturdays and one evening. Had mixed reviews from friends along the lines of what's been said on here, but thought it would be good for the social aspect, and also to have something we could do together as a couple, so DH could feel properly involved - he's been given a couple of books but not really got in to them. Everything else he's learned has been filtered through me. I want him to engage himself.

What swung it for us in the end was that we got a 50% discount due to our current reduced financial circumstances. And it's 10m drive away.

Gnat99 - I found that my husband did engage himself because of nct classes. Mainly because there were other men in the group who had read up on various topics and were well-informed so there was a bit of pressure on him to look involved!

I missed classes first time round as I delivered at 31 weeks. I would have liked to do them this time around as it was one of the things I missed out on and good preparation for birth and newborn stuff but I've just looked up classes for this time and the nearest is 15 miles away. If the catchment area is a 15 radius in all directions then I consider that too far for social reasons. I live in a rural county so it's not uncommon to have to travel far, for example my hospital is 15 miles in the opposite direction. It's a shame but I don't think it's worth paying extra to do classes in the hope that you'll build a support network up if you are so widely spread out. I think I'll stick with my one afternoon nhs class for information and local mum's and babies groups for social and emotional support. And keep my fingers crossed that I make full term this time!

I went to NCT and it wasn't worth it in my opinion - I didn't click with any of the other attendees and we're not in touch, and it didn't teach me anything I didn't already know from reading. My biggest support network has been through the mumsnet antenatal thread I joined. Once we were nearing full term we started a private Facebook group so we could share images. Over 2 years on we still chat daily, share concerns and worries and have occasional meet ups in small groups (as we're scattered over the country and abroad). Though I haven't met most of them they are genuine friends with whom I have shared a great deal and whom I would be lost without. I think I got lucky with my group though - there have been unusually few spats over the years despite some very different parenting styles.

I'm not sure a Facebook group is the same as the social interaction in real life, what about your kids too? Part of meeting people is they have babies the same age.

To be honest I've always thought that the reason the NCT charge as they do is because they want to position themselves as somewhere you can meet 'naice' middle class parents and won't have to worry about oiks coming in because they can't afford the fees. They offer a few tokens to those on the very, very lowest incomes; but they are more than aware that there are plenty of people who aren't dirt poor who couldn't afford those sort of fees but they won't help because they deliberately don't want them in their classes.

I tried them and found that they were very much for certain 'types' who were interested in meeting the same and if you're not that type as far as friendship goes they're useless. We could afford because DH has a well paid manual job, but because he was in a manual job and I work in an administrative job and we're not massively materialistic it was very clear we didn't fit with what the NCT wanted.

It's the sort of place for people who get competitive about who has the most expensive trendy pram in my book.

You might find a local fb group with meet ups. Also, I on an fb group formed from my first pg mumsnet anti natal forum and although we haven't all met each other I have a couple of good local friends who I see regularly for play dates.

I also made friends as I went along by just talking to other mums and making myself invite them for coffee. One lady I met in a local pub on a sunday afternoon when our boys were very little and it turned out we both use the same creche and had our eyes on the same nursery. The boys are great friends two years on and so are me and her.

I might add the creche was in the gym. We weren't just in a habit of dropping our kids off lol

I did a local postnatal group instead which was £70 for 10 sessions and made great friends once my baby was 4 months old. It's never too late to join something. I just wanted to slob about when pregnant rather than meet ups.

I agree that the comparatively high charge is to position it as middle-class. The classes certainly won't tell you anything you can't pick up from reading the average pregnancy and birth book/free NHS classes. You are essentially paying the fee as a gamble that you will like other people in your group who live close enough to you to make frequent post-baby socialising possible.

I didn't quite grasp this when my midwife told me I absolutely must join the NCT - looking back, she saw me as potentially isolated, an older professional first time mother living far from friends and family and with a history of depression. In fact, I didn't like my group much, and we were scattered over a fairly wide area of North London, so didn't meet easily or often.

What a lot of first-time parents don't know is that you don't have to join the NCT to go to local coffee mornings/meet-ups. If I had a time machine, that's what I would do.

I didn't find the classes useful at all, particularly for the money spent! My husband did, however, so they were good from that point of view - giving him an idea of what to expect during labour and how to help. I think I'd done so much reading there was very little new info. We did two full-day classes and they were pretty exhausting - our group leader kept putting things (photos, diagrams) on the floor to us to pick up or move around, which isn't easy at 8 months pregnant.

That said, the social element is really good and worth the extortionate fees, if like me you're a little (lot) too lazy to go and find other new mum friends for much-needed coffee, cake & company when you have a newborn.

I didn't do them. One friend did but doesn't seem to see the group much. Another sees her group a lot, but they are very niace!

I went to a breast feeding support group after I had my son, meet some lovely women. We have kept in touch, all celebrating 2nd birthdays now!

I found it easier to chat to other people after I'd had my son as it just gave you an easy conversation starter.

Unimaginativename - the Facebook group (via mumsnet antenatal forums) has lead to social interactions, face to face. Ditto local Facebook parenting groups I'm on, that hold local meet ups. And they've been more enjoyable than my NCT ones, which I found quite snobbish. My child has plenty of social interaction with kids his age, despite not going to nursery, through the myriad of local playgroups we attend... You certainly don't need NCT to find kids the same age. It's paying a lot for the opportunity that you'll make friends. Ours was a group of 6 and I didn't have a great deal on common with any of them besides having a baby at the same time, and that's not enough of a basis for friendship for me! Sure you've always got something in common to talk about, but that's pretty dull if that's where it ends.