Jump to content

Recommended Posts

Jj55 have made great points and like her i did not have the funds for nct. The dulwich hospital group covered most things just fine. My advice would be that if your main reasons for joining nct are social to make friends then there are other ways. The forum has opened up a whole new world to me and i too have met some great friends with other mums.

Hi

For me the NCT charge was too much for us at the time and I felt that I could learn all I needed to know from books, online, friends and the NHS classes. For the social side, you are on it already - I found all my mummy friends through the baby group on the forum. I thought the NHS class we did was great and everything we needed to know. And I've met some really lovely friends for support on this forum. So for me I didn't need NCT classes.

Good luck!

Thanks ladies,


Lots of great advice, it's been really helpful. By the sounds of it it's great if you do it but mainly for social reasons and I will make friends if I don't. I just need to make the effort. We are so lucky to have a great forum and lots of different meet ups around.


At the moment I think the money will be better spent elsewhere. If we had it spare then I'd go for it but as money will be tight and there is a good chance I'll have to stop work earlier than I'd like I might save the pennies.


THanks again.

I'm sure it doesn't matter where you do an ante-natal class - NCT, free hospital or whatever but I do think it's fantastic

to be a part of a group of people all experiencing the same thing. My children are now 16 and 13 but we are still in

touch with some of the NCT group we joined at the time and I have really strong memories of us all supporting one another

during the inevitable worries and then having people to spend time with when we had newborn babies - a really isolating

time for lots of people. As for the "just like you" comment, that wasn't really the case, but perhaps back then it wasn't

expensive, we wouldn't have been able to afford it if it had been... Anyway, hope you find some group that suits.

I would really recommend the NCT classes, but I realize that this is a totally personal opinion and that they wouldn't be right for everyone. I consider that it is one of the best investments that I made in spending money on my children. I have made really good friends who live in my local area, and their support has been invaluable over the last 3-4 years. Our children are all friends with each other as well, which is lovely.


I'm not endorsing it as anything other than a means to make friends that are "just like you" and about to experience the same thing together... I don't consider that to be a bad thing. We usually make lasting relationships with people because we have something in common with them, and in a way the NCT class helped me to find a like-minded group of couples in my area who were all about to have a first child.


I'm not sure that I really learned that much from the course, and my partner didn't really take much in. I didn't actually agree with the teacher a lot of the time (thought the info about the downsides of intervention was really OTT and not based on research at all, and the pressure for home/drug free births was immense). I acknowledge that not all NCT classes are like this, but mine was very centred around preparing for a "natural" birth.


Second time around, I didn't do any antenatal classes so the experience was quite different. I am lucky to have friends on my road with similar aged (some second, some first) children as well. It gave me a good social circle when I was on maternity leave, and has given my second child some similar aged friends that live locally without having to wait until school age for that to happen.


Good luck with whatever decision you make, and enjoy parenthood - it's great :)

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
  • Latest Discussions

    • But do you not understand how tough farming is, especially post-Brexit when some of the subsidies were lost and costs have increased massively yet the prices farmers can charge has not? On the BBC News tonight they said pig farming costs had gone up 54% since 2019, cow farming costs up 44% and cereal costs up 43%. The NFU said that the margins are on average 0.5% return on capital. Land and buildings are assets that don't make money until you sell them...it's what you do with them that makes money and farms are struggling to make money and so many farms are generational family businesses so never realise the assets (one farmers on the news said his farm had been in the family since 1822) but will have to to pay tax for continuing the family business. On another news item tonight there was a short piece saying the government has said that 50,000 more pensioners will be forced into relative poverty (60% of the average income) due to the Winter Fuel Allowance removal which will rise to 100,000 more by 2027. James Murray from the Treasury was rolled out on Newsnight to try and defend that and couldn't. You can't give doctors 20%+ and push more pensioners into poverty as a result.  The problem for Labour is the court of public opinion will judge them and right now the jury is out after a series of own-goals, really poor communication and ill-thought-out idealogical policies. And don't ever annoy the farmers.....;-)  
    • That % of “affected” doesn’t mean they are all in deep trouble.  It means this will touch on them in some small way mostly - apart from the biggest farms  it’s like high rate tax earners taking to the street when Osborne dragged child/benefit claimants into self assessment.  A mild pain  the more I read, the more obviously confected it is. Still - just as with farage and his banking “woes”, a social media campaign is no barrier to the gullible  what percentage of farms affected by Brexit and to what degree compared go IHT?  Or does that not matter? Thats different money is it? 
    • Farmers groups say 35% of farms will be affected while the Treasury reckons its 27% - neither figure is a tiny portion. The problem is farming is often asset rich but cash poor meaning that those who inherit farms and have to pay the tax will likely need to sell land to pay for it and could well further impact the cash poor nature and productivity of that farm. I would have thought those who align on the left would be welcoming farmers protesting on the streets against a government making their lives more difficult. Good on them. Makes a change from tube and rail strikes at least! I was shocked to read that the average weekly earnings for agricultural workers was significantly lower than the national average.  Clearly Labour doesn't consider these working people.
    • A tax change that affects a tiny portion of farmers livelihoods and income - mass protest and wild accusations on forums like this    Brexit which impacted farmers income and uk food security far far far more ? Crickets. Absolutely nothing. “Price worth paying mate “   Don’t  be fooled about what this is about - it’s isn’t IHT.  
Home
Events
Sign In

Sign In



Or sign in with one of these services

Search
×
    Search In
×
×
  • Create New...