Wednesday, May 11, 2011

OUR FIRST ANTENATAL CLASS

So, the HG and I had our first ever antenatal class on Monday night and we went into it thinking we had a pretty good grasp on things . . . that was until we realised that we really didn't! The HG spent the whole class whispering to me 'Did you know that?' and me whispering back 'No, did you?'.

Our classes run every Monday night for 2 hours and the first one was what they call the 'basics' - nappies (cloth, disposable, reuseable), preventing flat heads, making up the bassinet/cot, bathing. I had no idea that you weren't supposed to use soap on a newborn (why then are there so many advertised!), that babies shouldn't sleep flat on their backs as they'll get a flat head, that there were so many flash modern reuseable nappies available, that you shouldn't use a plastic bassinet or cot cover and should just use a woolen one, that babies don't know their hands and arms belong to them and should be swaddled as they have a tendency to hit themselves in the head and wake themselves up . . . the list goes on! All in all we found the class to be very informative and amusing. I think we are very lucky in that we have a class that is run by someone with a great sense of humour who doesn't go on and on and on about the same things and is in no way boring. I have heard nightmare stories from friends, so this is a blessing. We got handed out cloth nappies and told to fold along with her and I got a nudge towards the end from the HG who upon receiving his cloth nappy had immediately folded it into a triangle and declared he was done and then when he was asked to follow instructions got completely lost and while the rest of us had our nappies folded to perfection he was still trying to figure out the first two folds. The poor boy! This is going to be a fun journey! And an amusing one for my blog readers!

We have 8 couples in our class but no one spoke to one another - it was one of those awkward times where everyone kind of sizes each other up but everyone is too shy to say anything. Hopefully next class will be a bit better because if these ladies are going to form my coffee group we really need to get to know one another! They're all around our age though which is great.

Anyway, next class we are watching the baby come out through a plastic cervix - JOY!

4 comments:

  1. haha- sounds like it was a fun class, and HG had a lot of nappy folding practice to do! The next class sounds like it's going to be an eye opener for him too!

    ReplyDelete
  2. I had the same experience with the other couples in my antenatal class, none of us really talked properly or got to know each other until the coffee group actually started, and now 17 months on we are all still in contact and I have 2 really close new friends!
    I think in the classes you are so busy trying to process all the new information (and trying to fight the exhaustion you start to feel) that to then try and get to know people quickly is really hard.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I really wanted to get to know the people in my class better, too. I enjoyed the classes but would've loved to have gotten to know more new moms like me!

    ReplyDelete
  4. I love hearing about your experiences. Hope you have fun in the rest of your classes!!!

    ReplyDelete

JOIN ME ON FACEBOOK