Rant about cost!

Here here to floor play being the best development sitmulation ever and it is free!!!

Hmmmm. Honestly? I think here is something more going on with (some of) these mums. I see if often in the groups through parents centre (Im pres). First time mums often feel they need to "put on a public face" that they are coping brilliantly and its all easy as pie. Often, alot of these mums aren't doing that well and are too scared to say to anyone else, cos "everyone else" is coping. How these mums often cope is by being out of the house all the time. These is often also alot of unspoken "peer mummy pressure" out there to have the designer gears and be doing every activity out there to make their baby the brainiest etc. Often alot of first time mums think if they don't do these things (gymbaroo etc) their baby will be behind developmentally etc, and that is just NOT TRUE!!!!
I would just be up front and say I just can't justify spending $11 a week on baby gym classes - you're not saying you can't afford it ,but that you just can't justify it when in reality it dosen't make the babies any better etc. Also, there is always a "ringleader" of every group, just like there is always a couple of wall flowers. Make for the wallflowers and sneekily sound them out on how they really feel about the activity thing, maybe even just say to them I'm gonna give (X) a skip this week, I'm going to bake, who would like to come for a coffee and a perve at my wedding pix?
Good luck, chick.

Edited by fattartsrock

Yup, works well for me

I'm also lucky that my coffee group tends to rotate around people's houses - in about 4 months, we've only gone out 3 times, and we get together weekly. We do sometimes catch up at the mall etc, but we have one free thing a week.

Quoting fattartsrock: How these mums often cope is by being out of the house all the time

Have to admit, that's sometimes a strategy I use (actually, often a strategy I use ) - I find Daniel is much easier to deal with (or I get less stressed) if I'm out and about. But it usually consists of walking to the local mall and library, walking round it and coming home!

How do you guys get into Coffeegroup? espec small town people (and not first time parents)

Everytime i join something a coffee group never happens. I thought about parent centre but they charge u. I think I might talk to plunket and see if they run a coffee group.

PAFT= Parents and First teachers.. you have to be in before bubs is like 4 months I think?and lasts till 3....I have learnt heaps and I'm a teacher.. they come once a month and are really great at talking to you bout other stuff as well

the other thing is Thomas and the other babies are still really young so I'm not sure why they think they need to do all the classes and everything? I got frustrated cause I thought some of the Mums i know were doing so well and I was the only one who found it hard(I openly admit I found the first few months really difficult) but upon talking to some I realised they put a lot of energy into pretending they did...

Ah. Thomas is 4 months old today lol..
I guess they just want to do everything they can, I dunno. I would have loved to get Thomas into some of it, but yea $$$$!

[QUOTE I'm not really a 'sing along' person lol.. [/QUOTE]

That is what i said before I started Mainly Music - I have a terrible voice and was worried about singing and dancing around in public (not my thing) but we have been going for two years now - since Amy was 6 or 8 weeks old and it is great. Amy loves it and Sophie is really starting to get into it too. As Emma said - $3 a week and morning tea is hard to go past.

Edited by jaycee

Issy does both Jumping Beans and Swimming and has done since she was 12 weeks old (and Active Movement - but thats free).

We do it mostly so she gets to mingle with other kiddies as DH doesnt belong to any coffee groups (unless you count the January Mummies), and she loves swimming!

I have found that her jumping beans class has helped with her motor skills, although she may have started crawling before turning 7 months anyway, we shall never know.

I guess we are just fortunate that we can afford to send her to these things. Although there was this terms jumping beans was paid for by Grandma and I had to pay for car repairs instead

I;ve been thinking a lot of about this kida stuff and how we feel we are "bad mothers" if we don't do this and that - and basically it ends up sacrificing ourselves (and our budget) we thinkfor our children, hen in actual fact, kids grow into much better adults if we as parents just spend time with them!   WE never went to fancy classes and we turned out alright (well, some of us don't stress! and join my bad mummy club!

kebakat wrote: We also went to lollipops the other day and $9 for me and Daniel that is kinda expensive. But I'm thinking of taking him there once every couple of weeks just because he had a ball and I got to chat to lots of mums while I was there.

 

Do you have Chipmunks in palmy?  It's cheaper than lollipops ($5.50 for 2&3 yos and free for adults) and we prefer their playground.