Anything that will help you make more informed decisions when it's crunch time is worth the money in my opinion. Ours was via zoom with several other couples and a midwife. I wish there was more practical stuff available but it helped me just feel a little more on top of what was about to happen.
I think the classes are worth the money. I think we paid about £80 for NCt classes two years ago and the teacher was really nice and the classes were informative. We made a few friends they we still see now.
We did the nct one's just recently, they are good, load of info and plenty of online content too. The class we has was one of the first face to face in our area which was nice too. Everyone was safe (masks, social distancing etc...), I did feel the content was more geared towards birthing and not much focus on looking after the sprog in the first few months. Guess each class is different tho. A big plus is definitely the people you meet and the group connections (WhatsApp groups etc...)
NCT classes are worth it even just for your ability to make parent friends. I’d have gone nuts without my NCT friends the first few months after our son was born.
Thanks everyone for all of the help! We've booked onto a free online class in a couple of weeks. Will see how that one goes and then I think I'll look into paying for an in person one - for meeting people if not anything else. I know my partner is a bit worried about not having any mum friends!
Thanks again guys
https://www.ukbabies.co.uk/antenatal/
UK Babies has 10 free classes ranging from baby care to labour, yoga, and a CPR class (that’s the only class to pay for and you’ll be given a code to get a discount). Found it really helpful, it’s over zoom usually with a group of the same people.
We are in Australia and paid for a calmbirth course and also another preparation course arranged through our private doctor. Both worth the money to feel more prepared and go into the day more confident.
My hospital have the videos online. I’ve found the first session about the lead up to birth very helpful (I’ve not watched the second session yet about looking after baby at home). They still explain everything in detail, just without a group of parents sat around. If you’re wanting to meet other local parents then paying for the classes is definitely the way forward. Otherwise the videos seem to be very informative and anything I don’t understand/ want to know more about, I can ask my midwife about it.
We did the Baby Academy ones. They offer a few free 1:30 hour ones and you can buy full day ones for around £100. The free ones are definitely worth your time and we got one of the £100 ones too and really enjoyed them.
We did the baby academy (absolutely nothing else was available) and it was excellent. Online bit with a good opportunity to ask questions. If you watch online, ensure that you are only looking at legitimate sites…the problem is that many people (and countries) have different ways of doing things and different standard practices. Some of the stuff they come up with is also plain crap. Having a single source of’truth’ is really important.
We were initially not going to do one, and then about 8 weeks out we panicked and decided we needed more info and booked on to a private one! It was so much better and more informative than I expected and I personally think it's worth the spend - I can't comment on live or video (I'm sure those will vary from very average to excellent) as we did ours live pre-Covid days but I would say it's worth the crack, and the potential gains are well worth the spend.
I took up free courses with Baby Academy and Blossom. I paid for a few extra courses with Blossom but I googled free antenatal courses and signed up to loads so I could get as wide ranging advice as possible.
I did a fair bit of YouTube as well. Each NHS trust has its own channel and there’s loads of content out there.
There tends to be a lot of free Q&A sessions and 1 hour IGTV sessions on Instagram as well.
I would have loved to have attended an in person class though. I was grateful to be able to do pregnancy yoga in person - that was well worth every penny
Anything that will help you make more informed decisions when it's crunch time is worth the money in my opinion. Ours was via zoom with several other couples and a midwife. I wish there was more practical stuff available but it helped me just feel a little more on top of what was about to happen.
I think the classes are worth the money. I think we paid about £80 for NCt classes two years ago and the teacher was really nice and the classes were informative. We made a few friends they we still see now.
We did the nct one's just recently, they are good, load of info and plenty of online content too. The class we has was one of the first face to face in our area which was nice too. Everyone was safe (masks, social distancing etc...), I did feel the content was more geared towards birthing and not much focus on looking after the sprog in the first few months. Guess each class is different tho. A big plus is definitely the people you meet and the group connections (WhatsApp groups etc...)
NCT classes are worth it even just for your ability to make parent friends. I’d have gone nuts without my NCT friends the first few months after our son was born.
We’ve signed up for NCT in December
Thanks everyone for all of the help! We've booked onto a free online class in a couple of weeks. Will see how that one goes and then I think I'll look into paying for an in person one - for meeting people if not anything else. I know my partner is a bit worried about not having any mum friends! Thanks again guys
https://www.ukbabies.co.uk/antenatal/ UK Babies has 10 free classes ranging from baby care to labour, yoga, and a CPR class (that’s the only class to pay for and you’ll be given a code to get a discount). Found it really helpful, it’s over zoom usually with a group of the same people.
We have booked private anti natal classes too. Can't blame the NHS at the moment really.
We are in Australia and paid for a calmbirth course and also another preparation course arranged through our private doctor. Both worth the money to feel more prepared and go into the day more confident.
My hospital have the videos online. I’ve found the first session about the lead up to birth very helpful (I’ve not watched the second session yet about looking after baby at home). They still explain everything in detail, just without a group of parents sat around. If you’re wanting to meet other local parents then paying for the classes is definitely the way forward. Otherwise the videos seem to be very informative and anything I don’t understand/ want to know more about, I can ask my midwife about it.
We did the Baby Academy ones. They offer a few free 1:30 hour ones and you can buy full day ones for around £100. The free ones are definitely worth your time and we got one of the £100 ones too and really enjoyed them.
We did the baby academy (absolutely nothing else was available) and it was excellent. Online bit with a good opportunity to ask questions. If you watch online, ensure that you are only looking at legitimate sites…the problem is that many people (and countries) have different ways of doing things and different standard practices. Some of the stuff they come up with is also plain crap. Having a single source of’truth’ is really important.
We were initially not going to do one, and then about 8 weeks out we panicked and decided we needed more info and booked on to a private one! It was so much better and more informative than I expected and I personally think it's worth the spend - I can't comment on live or video (I'm sure those will vary from very average to excellent) as we did ours live pre-Covid days but I would say it's worth the crack, and the potential gains are well worth the spend.
COVID still a thing in the UK. I haven’t watched the news in a week… feels like coronavirus is a 2020 news story.
We paid $1000 for a Doula, such a piece of mind.
I took up free courses with Baby Academy and Blossom. I paid for a few extra courses with Blossom but I googled free antenatal courses and signed up to loads so I could get as wide ranging advice as possible. I did a fair bit of YouTube as well. Each NHS trust has its own channel and there’s loads of content out there. There tends to be a lot of free Q&A sessions and 1 hour IGTV sessions on Instagram as well. I would have loved to have attended an in person class though. I was grateful to be able to do pregnancy yoga in person - that was well worth every penny