The very first mother and baby group we attended was a local breastfeeding bistro. We had to see a breastfeeding specialist due to several issues me and L had at that time.
I didn't want to take L to any groups at such an early age but we didn't have a choice.
Older kids were running around with toys, music playing, to my surprise L was sleeping as if it's the quietest place in the world! All mums were set in a half circle and were offered a free cake whilst waiting and "socialising". I was set next to a lady who had a little baby girl. It was nice to have a chat but it was a little bit awkward, I think she thought exactly what I did- we would never see each other again so on her way out she never said good bye!
Few weeks later we attended our second group-baby massage. I was very eager to go and try it with L.
The group was not in my local children centre which was a bit of a problem for me as I didn't want to expose L to the world of public transport for few reasons- germs, L constantly crying and constant feeding.
Thankfully the representative from the council sorted a mini bus. I didn't mind the group at all, until I noticed that the massage lady was chatting to one of the mums for ages isolating others, some mums didn't talk much at all, 2 foreign mums were chatting amongst themselves and a lady who had different parenting style to mine. We didn't argue it's just everything she liked to do with her daughter I wouldn't do with mine just yesterday I found out that my husband dated her at school (how lovely!).
It was very obvious that we are there for babies not to make friends, at least no one made friends.
The third and the last one for now was Rhythm time, it's a musical class where babies are introduced to music and different instruments.
We went to a taste session where all babies were much older, L was 10 weeks and other babies were 10 months! Later I found out that most of them either know each other because it's a small town or because they go to these classes since their babies were L's age.
I wanted to try something different so I booked us in for the next 5 weeks (you have to pay upfront and if you miss a session you either lose money or book yourself to a different session) but to a group where babies were similar age.
First week all new mums met each other, some were more talkative, others didn't want to talk to each other, but closer to the end of the class I've noticed that all mums had a friend to talk to, where as my partner to the right didn't want to talk at all. It fine, I thought, it doesn't matter I have L and surely can have fun with her. Cutting long story short I made 3 weeks out of 2, as it seemed repetitive and I had no motivation to go.
I'm not saying I'm scared of meeting other people (secretly we all do, right?!), I'm scared to be "odd man out", I don't want to purposely wake up L from her nap to take her to the group, I don't want to base my day around the groups which start at a ridiculous times (at least for us it's inconvenient) and most importantly I don't want to use public transport because of the germs :-)
But I will have to force myself to go because L needs socialising and getting used more kids, more people than just seeing me all day long.
Do you force yourself or do you enjoy baby groups?
