NCT

il_principe

Apologies for the avalanche of threads!

Been looking into NCT courses and have heard very mixed reviews about the NCT. Be interested to hear people's experiences of these, particularly if you live in London or SW London. I was keen to at least give them a try, then I saw the cost. We've been quoted £364 for an ante-natal course of 8 sessions, which seems extortionate.

LouO

Could be the best £364 you'll ever spend, and mostly nothing to do with the things you'll learn.

The people you'll meet on the course, who will be going through the same thing as you at the same time, will likely become your closest friends.

Our eldest has just started school, so our NCT friends are people we've known for nearly 5 years.

greg66_tri_v2.0

Il Principe wrote:

Apologies for the avalanche of threads!

Been looking into NCT courses and have heard very mixed reviews about the NCT. Be interested to hear people's experiences of these, particularly if you live in London or SW London. I was keen to at least give them a try, then I saw the cost. We've been quoted £364 for an ante-natal course of 8 sessions, which seems extortionate.

They are a means for Mrs IP to have a group of mates post-birth. That's about it.

There's a ton of stuff they peddle about breathing and birth partners, but frankly it's all cobblers and best avoided by anyone with a penis (and TWH).

The "circle of new mums" thing though is worth having to keep 'em happy. And off the streets, bored, etc...

rjsterry

We didn't go for NCT classes, mainly on cost, but also they do have a bit of an agenda, which didn't quite chime with our let's-just-see-how-we-get-on approach. Instead we did a course of 6 evenings at the New Victoria Hospital on the way to Kingston, which were very good and reasonably priced.

blu3cat

we did the NHS one, free and met some really good people, stood us in good stead, the NCT ones seems to attract a more affluent middle class crowd after talking to my parent friends who attended.

Lots of info on birth process and information about the various options. I was very glad I went.

I live in Colliers Wood, and we went to one in Mitcham (our closest).

I would be happy to give you my experience of St Georges, and car free existence with a baby (now toddler) if you want to PM me.

jeepie

I'd definitely recommend them.

Not for the hokum they peddle about burning hogwort near your partner's toes for a smooth birth, or the horrifying time charts they get you to write out that show you will have no bike riding time, or the dreadful piccalilli nappies that you get to practise on, or the worries about breast feeding, latching etc...

The main reason to go is a support network is vitally important for your partner, particularly if you're at work long hours. Ready made mates basically, baby sitting swaps and a sounding board for like minded people with similar hopes and fears. So unless you've got load of mates simultaneously sprogging up, go......drink the awful tea (ah sorry coffee) and be nice. You'll make some life long friends if you play your cards right.

davmaggs

It's worth doing the NHS ones and NCT as they both cover different things. The NHS ones if at the hospital can also get you recognised by the staff when you return weeks later to go on the ward, and that can prove helpful.

The NCT is more for the network, as professional types living in London typically lack a family/social network near them and this becomes really important. Drinking buddies or work colleagues won't count, in fact they'll fall by the wayside.

Also the area you are in tends to dictate the NCT people you meet. My experience is that the Herne Hill group is laid back compared to the power mums of Wandsworth up the road. It sounds cliched, but true.

londonlivvy

I'm not sure why your NCT is so much more expensive than ours? I paid £248 (including membership) for a course of 8 evening classes which began in August. We're in Surrey (Esher) so don't know if that's cheaper than SW London?

FWIW, the teacher has been educational, friendly and hasn't shoved a "it must be natural birth" agenda at us. She's said that you just have to see how it goes, but go in informed. I've learnt loads (not just about WHICH DRUGS CAN I ASK FOR, but also how to change nappy, bath a baby, what stuff do we actually need to buy vs just cute stuff) and it's been fun too. To my surprise, boyf (who I'd said only HAD to come to the first class) has come to most of them, saying he thought it was moderately entertaining and interesting.

I am really glad we've done the classes, partly for the info, but partly also for the making of friends who are in the same stage of life. I don't know how long term these friends will turn out to be (I'm 35 wks preg) but I'll be spending time with at least some of them (there are six couples in our group). Both my sisters said that NCT was invaluable for the network of mums after the baby - but I accept there are other routes (bumps and babies groups, NHS ante natal classes, depending on the area). And of course you may have lots of friends who have babies already?

clarkey cat

we signed up and paid our money as we thought that it would be a good way to meet new parents in the area.

we walked out after 2 sessions. Our issues were:

- they are massively against pain relief and give a very one-sided view on pain relief options
- they slag off the NHS and doctors
- super competitive parents to-be judging actual parents that hadn't given birth / parented in the way they foresee that they would

I don't think you'll learn anything useful at the NCT that you wouldn't doing the free NHS one. But if you want some middle class mates to go to gastro-pubs with and talk baby then go for it.

il_principe

Thanks, all interesting stuff.

My main concern is that as a non-Brit, the missus distrusts the NHS. Doesn't help that they borked my collarbone op. I'm concerned that she will swallow any hokum fired her way. This will be doubly bad as I have a real hatred for all things 'alternative' and I know this will lead to arguments, which I'd like to avoid. I've heard from a lot of people that NCT can be very hokum-heavy.

Other issue is that I'd like to move us out of London fairly soon after the baby arrives. This means that any local friends will be lost. If this is they key benefit of NCT then it's not one we're going to appreciate.

Maybe it's best to join an NCT when we leave London as we'll need to meet new folk then anyway.

Gussio

Five years down the line and we are still good friends with 4 out of the 6 couples that we met on the NCT course. The kids have grown up together and are in the same class at school. Great support network and all the stuff that is written above. I only went to two of the sessions, but they are not really for the fella.

A useful output was the birthing plan that they encourage you/her to prepare. Turned out to be very handy indeed, when decisions around cutting things had to be made and she was in no state to make a call. The horror all comes flooding back.....

gabriel959

We barely used any of the training given in the NCT, the amount of natural birth rubbish that you hear is nauseating too. The NHS was great though during the birth of our little girl, as good as anything (and I am also non-brit). And I say that coming from the superior (or used to be superior! ) Spanish health service.

My wife though made many good friends since then, some of them have become very close friends and that is, for me, the main reason to do it. From your circumstances it looks like the best idea is to wait.

bigmat

Its all about the networking. The course itself is pretty much a waste of time at best, quite insulting at worst (ignore the "breast is best", "no pain relief" propaganda). We did the Wandsworth one as an intensive weekend course, got it out of the way quickly at least but probably less good for blokey bonding (I say that as though that's a bad thing; like most blokes, I already have more mates than I have time for...). My wife found having a network of local people in the same situation as her really helpful and is still in contact with most of the mums, even though we have since moved from the area (so have most of the others!). If you're intending to move away within 6 months or so, probably not worth the money though.

Oh yeah, congratulations London Livvy (I'm probably a bit slow on the uptake with that one!)

alan_sherman

We did the Putney one about 5 month ago, Rachael the NCT person that ran the session was nice, not Hokem heavy!

NCT do have an agenda (Natural childbirth) but are more about the parents making the choices they want and if that is an epidural then so be it. The NHS doesn't tell you about a number of things (e.g. we didn't know you could see the facilities in a hospital - and that Chelsea and Westminster and Kingston both have labour wards and Midwife led wards - you can chose which you'd rather use). So the info on the local facilities was useful. Having the time ringfenced for thinking about the birth and baby was particularly useful to me.

Spending £300 as an introduction fee to meet parents in the local area was worthwhile in my opinion - particularly for my wife as her friends are not very local and she is foreign so family are not around. The ladies and babies meet every Wednesday since the births and have that support network, which actually can span out into other groups too.

It will attract a certain type of people that are willing to spend the cash and are in the area the sessions are based. Whether you want to meet those types of people is personal choice.
My wife is foreign and Catholic and a couple of other mums in the group were also non-British and it turned out went to the same church.


Maybe worthwhile in your case - but the question is how soon you think you might be moving. Bear in mind that moving won't be high in your mind for the first 6 months after the birth and that is when the support is most useful.

londonlivvy

I think with NCT it really does depend on who your class leader / teacher is. Ours has said openly that her first birth she had an epidural, second pethadine and third gas and air and her favourite by a long way was pethadine. She's talked through the pros and cons of each of the drugs and is by no means a hippy.

Also I think the most negative thing she said about the NHS was that in September there's always a baby boon so if your baby is born then, you'll probably have to go to the hospital for post-birth checks (rather than get midwife home visits), but by the time ours come (November) we should be ok.

So it may be worth you investigating who the course leader is in your particular area and asking on mumsnet for specifics about whether they are a raging NHS-hating hippy or whether they present a more balanced view.

Also, when you say "fairly soon" after the baby arrives, what sort of time frame are you talking? Because I'd say the first six months of the baby's life are going to be the most challenging and I, for one, am very glad to have other mums who I can phone up / meet up with and say Oh MY GOD I didn't think it would be like this and have you found that and what are you doing about y. If I had to make a new set of mum friends after six months, fine - by then I should be a bit calmer / more confident about the whole thing. Obviously Mrs IP may be much more confident about her parenting and may not feel the need for a network of support, but worth looking at?

greg66_tri_v2.0

Il Principe wrote:

Other issue is that I'd like to move us out of London fairly soon after the baby arrives.

Jash, you're really not thinking this through.

How easy do you foresee househunting outside London will be (a) without a car; (b) with a newborn in tow?

Some friends of ours decided that they would wait until they had had their twins before embarking on house hunting.

Two years later they had seen enough houses to make a decision. Two years. If that is your idea of "fairly soon", I'll shut up.

If you're going to move, start looking NOW. Aim to have decided on a house, or at the very least narrowed it down to an area so that you can wait for a property to appear, pre-birth. Put your gaff on the market NOW.

Any notion you have that it will be preferable, better or easier to house hunt after the birth should be swiftly and cleanly expelled from your noggin. I suggest a massive sneeze.

rjsterry

Il Principe wrote:

Thanks, all interesting stuff.

My main concern is that as a non-Brit, the missus distrusts the NHS. Doesn't help that they borked my collarbone op. I'm concerned that she will swallow any hokum fired her way. This will be doubly bad as I have a real hatred for all things 'alternative' and I know this will lead to arguments, which I'd like to avoid. I've heard from a lot of people that NCT can be very hokum-heavy.

Other issue is that I'd like to move us out of London fairly soon after the baby arrives. This means that any local friends will be lost. If this is they key benefit of NCT then it's not one we're going to appreciate.

Maybe it's best to join an NCT when we leave London as we'll need to meet new folk then anyway.

The NHS one we did at Kingston was bare basics only; the issues you mention above are part of the reason we avoided the NCT classes. The classes we did at the New Vic Hospital were run by the more experienced midwives from Kingston IIRC, and they were pretty down to earth and non-hokum-y - plenty of emphasis on how everyone is different, and just because X happened to or worked for Y, doesn't mean it'll be like that for you.

As regards the mums network thing, we didn't really click with the ante-natal group, but our GP surgery started a post natal group, which still meets regularly of it's own accord 3 years later. This was a real lifeline for Mrs RJS, who otherwise would have been stuck at home on her own for 12 hrs a day.

DonDaddyD

Jash, (are we going back to calling him Jash?). We didn't do NCT - though Ms DDD has gone out drinking with the Wimbledon NCT Mums...

We did antenatal or parentcraft classes. It was free on the NHS, I went to all of them excep the one about breastfeeding. Really useful, really honest and really informative. Its biggest benefit is that it allowed Mum to make new Mum friends and get to know the midwives. I think every visit to the hospital saw us bump into someone from that group.

Beyond that - and I think Wandsworth is the same - their will be a plethora of baby groups. In Wimbledon, Colliers Wood and Morden Ms DDD went to: Monday munchkins, rhyme time nursery rhymes, Jemma's jingles, messy play and many other baby/young kids groups and play centres. Essentially they're designed for Mum's to do fun things with the baby, drink tea and make friends. So much so we are entertaining Ms DDD's friend and partner this weekend and I think she might even do a little baby sitting for us...

Incidentally, we're planning on moving, I know exactly where I want to move right down to the three or four roads. The deciding factor was the school (Morden due to price, but I find myself suddenly tempted by Mitchem) and to be honest we live in a better area now for that one school in Wimbledon everyone who isn't Catholic wants to send their kids.

asprilla

Did the Walton / Weybridge one and it included two couples from Putney who were moving down post birth.

Some hokum, and although very 'breast is best' not as bad as some of the NHS midwives in St Peter's NICU.

Occasionally chat to some of the blokes but not really anything in common. Mrs A though speaks and hangs out with the mums all the time and we babysit / do nursery pick-up for each other which is a god send.

rjsterry

You'll be just up the road DDD. I may finally meet you in the flesh

EKE_38BPM

What is NCT?

veronese68

We didn't do NCT, Kingston NHS and that was fine.Taught us everything we needed to know.
Kept in contact with a few of the other parents for a few years. Now, 14 years later we only see one on a regular basis but only because the kids are at the same schools.
I think G66 was talking sense about looking for a house if you're looking at moving that soon after arrival of little ip.

rhext

The one we went too (16 years ago!) was invaluable.

The advice was balanced: they never appeared to have any sort of 'alternative' agenda, but aimed to inform about all the options.

We remain friends with most of the people we met on the course, we still meet up every so often (despite the fact that we moved to the midlands a few months after our first was born). I reckon it was worth whatever we paid at the time.

BigLights

Interesting feedback - we did NCT in Earlsfield and it was really great, on all counts. I think it may depend on the teacher...ours was very open to being 'class led', ie what do you people want to learn most about etc. She'd also had 3 kids at St. Georges herself so was speaking from experience. I really enjoyed the 'recent parents' Q&A session when people who had had babies came in to answer any questions, give advice etc.
We made some great friends and still meet up reasonably regularly, particularly with a couple of couples, including swapping babysitting etc. It was really useful during my wife's maternity leave and in the early days. We know another couple who didn't do it and they're struggling a bit with a total lack of others in the same situation.
The only bad feedback i've had about NCT came from a mate of mine, but to be fair they live in total cloud cookoo land...unlimited cash, live in nanny, live in maid, 5 days a week chef...you get the idea. So there were unlikely to bond with anyone to begin with.
IP I've PMd you, but if like my foreign wife yours is worried about NHS there's a spectacularly good private midwife who until this year was the Head Midwife at St. Georges. She'll come in and deal wtih delivery from beginning to end, guaranteeing there's there the whole time not just popping in every half an hour....and she knows everyone who works there so it's not like a Dula who could get in the way. She's also the most awesome night nanny in history (we had an off the scale difficult baby).

fossyant

NCT, never heard of it - my kids are 9 and 11, but we are from 'oop North. We did antenatal - god you will be bored...

Best things are the mums and tots groups, or the clinic days when the little one goes in for checkups. Thats how we met a number of our friends.

waddlie

Just finished a course in Bristol. Was brilliant but that was down to the teacher; I've heard holistic hippy horror stories from people that've been to others. Take the medical stuff with a pinch of salt and you should be fine; if you get a bad teacher I'd stop going and demand a refund. We paid about £190 for our 8 sessions, I think.

As for the "breast is best" pressure - you will get this everywhere, and I understand it's pretty much mandated by the WHO. Be ready for some difficult conversations with midwives and health visitors if for any reason you want/need to switch to formula early.

jibberjim

We did nothing, there's this great thing called the internet which lets you read up on anything you might want to know. As others have said it's a (very expensive) introduction service to people who only thing you have in common is the area you live and the fact you're having a baby. Of course the cost does let you filter out any "underisables" if that's your thing?

Of course those of who know us will probably say we're not quite typical, so it may well be you and your wife will want different things, but especially as you're not going to be around for long "making friends" doesn't seem a good way to spend the money - save it so you can buy the little one a power meter on their 5th birthday.

Waddlie Most HV's I've heard tend to prefer formula, it's more within their idea of knowing how much they eat, although if you have any sort of clue and don't look at risk for anything you probably won't see the HV's more than a couple of times in SW london anyway unless you seek them out. (Breast really is better though - it means the mother does all the night feeds...)

Like FossyAnt The childrens centres are very cheap, and tend to be heavily biased to non-English parents so as a non Brit she may feel more welcome.

rjsterry

EKE_38BPM wrote:

What is NCT?

National Childcare Trust IIRC, but they've been rebranded to a TLA now

http://www.nct.org.uk/about-nct

il_principe

Thanks everyone. I'm pretty torn now. Would be happy to try it, but I don't really want to spend £360 on it. Dunno why it's so pricey.

Harry182

+1 for "circle of new mums" support network. We NHS ante-natal but Mrs H also had a friend in a local NCT group and hooked up with them. I think for her the peer support and advice was invaluable.

DonDaddyD

Il Principe wrote:

Thanks everyone. I'm pretty torn now. Would be happy to try it, but I don't really want to spend £360 on it. Dunno why it's so pricey.

The free NHS ones are just as good and provide up-to-date NHS advice (you'll find the midwives in the hospital's advice differ from the newly qualified ones running these classes - but the quality of service and advice is always very good and high IMO).

I recommend those as it was what I went to.

You benefit from living in an area that is highly competitive when it comes to NHS services, especially around maternity services (lots of private healthcare providers providing NHS contracted services - so free to us they are paid through the NHS contract). It is also an area with a lot of young Mums, families, new babies etc so you may be really impressed with what is on offer and available to you for free or at discount. Encourage your partner to try all the groups once, that way you will meet the people in the same position as you (there are loads around where we live) and it'll give you the chance to meet cool people in your circumstances and give your wife the chance to make friends with Women who are likely to give birth around the same time. Ms DDD, for example, has her pregnancy friends - met during antenatal and baby yoga (yes there is a yoga class for pregnant women in Wimbledon) and her new Mum friends met at the baby groups she went to during her maternity leave.

It is all very daunting at first, then you find your way have the baby and then it's all very daunting again. Then you find your way and baby goes to nursery and its all very daunting again. I've only gotten that far.

Just remember: there is no one single right answer, it's all about what works for you and your wife. Give it time, you'll find your feet in amongst feeling daunting. - I think someone wrote that to me on here, several months ago.