Sunday, May 9, 2010

When did you start bringing your baby to parent and baby groups?

Inspired by another question I just answered! Is 4 months too young for a mother and baby/toddler group?





I just have a feeling I'll get funny looks, because my son's too young to really interact with the other babies, he's obviously not even crawling, or able to sit up on his own and play yet.





What's been your experiences of these groups?When did you start bringing your baby to parent and baby groups?
I thought about it for months and first took my daughter when she was 9 months old. She crawled a little bit and sat chewing the toys most of the time.


You can take them any age, find a play group that you like first of all, they are all different and do different events on different days such as baby massage, singing with baby where all mums sit together and sing nursery rhymes, soft play centres (my personal favourite) and childrens play centres with toys.


The one I go to, there are lots of mums with little babies in prams and they go to meet other mums.


netmums is a good site to find a centre in you area, that's where I found 2 I went to.When did you start bringing your baby to parent and baby groups?
There are baby groups that start out young, I used to go to one where I could get my daughter weighed every week from birth to a year old. You can also do baby/parent swimming lessons, those usually start at age 3 months. There are also a lot of baby gyms that you can probably go to. Look in you phone book and see what there is in your area and call them to see what there ages are. You could also see if your local library offers any baby story time groups.
Glad to have inspired you ;-)





We have been going to a breastfeeding cafe (la leche trained staff, informal support group) since bubs was 4 weeks, then we started going to other stuff when he was maybe 8-10 weeks or so?





Took him to baby swimming - a group at my local (surestart) children's centre called ';buggy buddies'; especially for the little ones, I did baby massage with him from 6 weeks onwards.





Now we go to baby music, baby story time, buggy buddies, breastfeeding cafe - loads really!





(most of the stuff is at various surestart centres in the borough where I live.)





My experience of them has been great. I've been to some that were not so good - some ordinary community playgroups in village halls etc, but the surestart stuff is great, trained staff, new centres, clean toys . . .





My son loved the swimming and it wasa group you could take young babies to.





Basically like someone else said, I would have gone insane if I hadn'g got out and met people - my partner went back to work after 6 weeks (he works in a school %26amp; bubs was born at the start of the hols!) and I honestly nearly cracked up. Luckily I had met a lovely mum at the breastfeeding cafe %26amp; together we sought out loads of stuff locally!
Im 18 years old with a 15month old girl and im 7months pregnant with a little boy %26amp; i started to go to a young mums group when i was pregnant with my little girl. If its a baby group then there is no age but if its a toddler group then maybe when little1 is walking. Some toddler groups have a section for baby's for parents who have a toddler and baby.





Hope this helps :)
I started going to them when my daughter was 8 weeks old. they are as much for you as for the baby. get out and meet like minded people, thats what they are about.
I started taking my daughter at 6 months. But that's only because that's when I found out about one! There is a baby at the group I go to that was 7 weeks old when we started.
I took my daughter from 6 weeks....for my sanity!!

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