Originally Posted by LankyDoodle

I am doing NCT classes. We have 8x2 hour classes. They are brilliant and NOT boring or dull or repetitive. There is a different theme for each week but we can also cross-over topics if we wish.

The classes are small and personal which in my first week (last week) was a little unnerving as it felt a bit cliquey, but this week I loved it and can see I'm going to get on really well.

All NCT areas run the classes slightly differently in that some run full days covering the same topics in 2 long sessions, and others do it like mine.

In week one we did the first hour getting to know each other and looking at our expectations of the classes and the second hour was looking at the stages of labour and the mechanics of labour, using charts etc. This week the men were told to go to the pub to get to know each other, have a chat etc while we stayed and chatted about the nice and not so nice parts of pregnancy that we didn't want to chat about in front of the men; we also did a class list of dos and donts for the men which we will go over with them next week (for during labour!). Next week is a session on breastfeeding but will also be a little about what we do and don't want from our partners during labour. Then we have a week where we go to look round the labour suites at the local hospital. There's a week where we are looking at complications, pain relief etc. A week where a new mum is going to come in to chat with us and we are going to look a postnatal stuff, problems etc, how to look after the newborn - don't expect dolls for that as they don't use them in NCT from what our teacher told us. The 8th week is running through what we've learnt, questions, creating a contact list, running back over anything we are unsure of.

The 2 hours go quite quickly for me and we chat quite openly about things. 2 ladies didn't turn up tonight and we think they have dropped off the course. Of the 8 ladies, in the first week the furthest ahead was 32 weeks and the furthest behind was 27 weeks. I don't think I'd like to have started them before that; it is nice to be able to relate to people at a similar stage to yourself and I don't think my mindset would have been right to relate to half of the content earlier in my pregnancy.

You are given loads of booklets and leaflets as well. I would say it is well worth it but keep an open mind as certainly with my teacher, I have found she says she isn't against certain things on one hand (things like pain relieving drugs) but then on the other tries to scare us off things. Do your own reading as well, and watch videos. I think the classes are great for the husbands and my husband now feels so much more connected to our baby than he did. My teacher doesn't use role play and doesn't put people in embarrassing situations, which I think is great.

Originally Posted by Joyzerelly

Oh my god! I haven't even thought about that yet, should I be organising something already?

Originally Posted by BethK

Thanks every so much for the information, not so nervous about them now. I'll be 25 weeks when i start but they wouldn't let me join the later group as the classes for that wont finish until after i've had the baby.

With the classes i'm joining they start on 24th Feb and finish in May, so not too soon as my baby's due on June 8th anyway.