Experience with NCT classes?

[KellyJellyfish]

Anyone done these? Did you find them useful or not? I think I’d like to sign up but my partner thinks they won’t tell us anything we can’t find out ourselves online (personally I think he just doesn’t want to give up a month of Thursday evenings),

they’re £300 so I’d only book if really worth it, what’s your experience been?

Really useful. We had several over 40/IVF/health challenge mums in our group who all knew CS was likely for them and were up front about it, so course leader wisely didn't go too hard on 'vaginal is the only way'. Like a PP we had the CS drill so when that did happen to me I felt I understood what was going on - and so did DH. I don't think DH would have engaged as well with the topics if it had been left to him to read the content and being with other dads was really good for him. I went through everything from TENS machine to gas and air to pethidine to being prepped for an epidural before they hit the crash button, and we both felt really informed about each step.
We also went to the hospital sessions because it offered a chance to see the delivery suite and they were a lot less in depth and with a huge group so less chance to ask questions.
We were lucky with our group and I'm still in touch with all the other mums four years on. The thing I felt was missing - and this is shaped by reading Lucy Jones's Matrescence recently - was some support to understand just what changes in your body and brain during pregnancy and early motherhood. I would have found some reassurance helpful. But as the book says the science is still emerging on a lot of that. (I really recommend it!)

It was nice, but I wouldn't say it was worth £300.

Our group never really gelled. We are in a rural area, so all lived far apart. We didn't really have anything in common other than we were having babies. 1 couple lived away a couple of months after birth, 3 couples never made in to a single meet-up after the course, which left 4 couples with whom every meet-up felt forced and uncomfortable. And we really struggled to meet-up, I think we met up 4 or 5 times and then we just drifted.

The course itself wasn't terrible but was very idealistic and anti intervention as others have said. I remember asking the leader what was the risk of vitamin K to which she said 'none' so I said 'why wouldn't you have it?' And she just turned away from me blanking my question.
I accepted an induction, which I don't regret, and I could tell that was very frowned upon. At our post birth meet up, she only wanted to hear home birth/ water birth stories and basically skipped mine and another girls c-section.
I really struggled with breastfeeding as I had virtually no supply. All I was told was 'don't give up so soon', and went on about oxytocin, and how low supply doesn't actually exist. I suspected at the time there was something more, I later found out I had retained placenta fragments and that's why I had no supply.

Ive just had my first baby and did NCT. The classes are helpful in the basics and I felt the birth/pain relief part was balanced. We had a separate teacher for breastfeeding and that definitely wasn't balanced so I imagine it does depend on the teacher. Equally as a group we always began the session by writing down what we wanted to know so we were steering things a little.

The network of mums is invaluable in my eyes. We have a WhatsApp group and will hopefully meet up lots once all the babies are here.

We loved it and it was the best thing we did. We both learn best in that sort of class environment anyway so that was better suited to us (especially DH) than reading books. Our group meets up regularly, the mums have been meeting roughly weekly while on mat leave. It was especially helpful for breastfeeding which I’ve now been doing for 8 months - none of my relatives breastfed so I don’t think I would have if I hadn’t done the course. It also gave me the confidence to go for the homebirth I’d been wondering about and as a result I had the best experience, which is totally invaluable. I know of course that won’t be the case for everyone but it was what worked for me. Of the others, one other had an unmedicated birth in hospital, a couple were induced and I think one or two had emergency c-sections. But everyone’s views in the classes were catered for, our teacher was great at presenting stuff in quite a factual way without saying you should do x or y or that x or y is bad.

I did Bump and Baby classes and loved them! Yes, you can find the information online, but it was so lovely to meet a group of people who were going through exactly what I was going through. I am still in touch with the people from my course and we had our babies last summer. Bump and Baby is run by midwives, so really handy if you have any questions and they gave our all information and was totally unbiased!

Please be aware people post on these threads without declaring they run classes for that company.

I posted upthread that I wouldn't recommend them (and haven't changed my mind) but I had an interesting chat with a friend from a creative hobby group yesterday. She's heavily pregnant with her first and she's the strong minded, organising type (you know what I mean). I'm the only one in the group who has kids, and we aren't close, so she has no friends with babies.

She was convinced from day 1 of pregnancy that she'd continue co-organising the weekly hobby group, of which her dh is also a member, and they'd continue to host it on the rota. They'd both attend every week and just put their baby in a bassinet while they did the hobby all evening. I laughed into my sleeve but knew it'd be fruitless to say anything.

Lo and behold she's totally changed her tune, said she and her dh might not be able to attend regularly because you can't reliably put a newborn down for that long (!) She says NCT classes helped her understand this (!)

So they have their purpose...!

I didn't learn anything really but I went to meet friends. Couldn't be without my nct friends, my daughters 20 months and we still talk every day and see each other a lot. I'd deff recommend it

Ive made friends in classes but it's different. We all went away together when the babies were tiny too.

In many respects this echoed my experience. I think, even the groups who are nicer, only a few couples genuinely gel. Some of the husbands didn't turn up for the post-partum reunion. This wasn't an issue, from my perspective, but the wives made a big deal about saying OH's would rather stick pins in their eyes than turn up. Probably not the most tactful response but they lacked the self awareness to just politely send their apologies. On reflection, they were probably escaping from their partner's stealth boasts about how easy they were finding breastfeeding etc which was what I was largely subjected to.