Last autumn I signed up for the free Baby Massage course at the Ormiston Centre. I did this for two reasons:
(1) Maya had bad colic at the time and I hoped massage would help alleviate this.
(2) It was free - we were already doing Lazy Daisy baby classes and swimming every week so our weekly outlay was around £30 when I factored in lunch, coffee, cake, etc.
Unfortunately we didn't get a place on the course as it was oversubscribed. This pissed me off as I have seen many of the mums at the Ormiston Centre and I imagined that the course would be really busy the first week, and then several would decide not to bother to go again. Whereas I knew we would value that place. I was doubly annoyed as the Incredible Babies course, which sounded really interesting and was all about development up to six months, was also full.
After Christmas I received a phone call saying that the next Baby Massage course was about to start and would I like a place. I said yes straight away and was looking forward to taking Maya there, although I declined the place they offered me on the Incredible Babies course as I didn't feel we'd get much out of it now Maya was over six months old.
So Tuesday afternoon we trotted along to the Ormiston Centre. I was way out of my comfort zone as over the last few months Maya and I have been going to (relatively expensive) classes that cater to the middle class parent, and even the free Baby Bounce sessions are at Woodbridge so we never mix with the types of parents that frequent the Sure Start centres. I am usually the poor relation with my 08 Renault Scenic in comparison to the Audi brigade!
The class was an odd mix - there were a few mums who were with their second child, one who didn't know she was pregnant until almost the third trimester (and she was a teacher!), a mouthy woman dressed head to toe in leopard print, a teenage mum living in a shelter and a mousy woman who was accompanied by her partner and his overbearing mother who kept shouting out and telling her what to do.
The course lasted five weeks, and each session kicked off with an ice breaker introduction. The first week we had to say who we were and why we had chosen our baby's name. My favourite was leopard print woman whose baby had a really stupid name - because she had unwisely let her eight year old son pick it. FFS!!! Another session we had to say what our favourite colour was and why! And the last session we had to say what we most liked about being a mum - Maya had been a right pain that day so I had to bite my tongue and be positive!
The massage techniques were okay, not taught especially well but good for a free course. Each session was 25 minutes massage followed by half an hour or so of chatting about issues that were concerning us. I didn't really want to stay for that part but felt it was rude to just get up and go. It was particularly unhelpful for us as Maya was the oldest by quite a way so all of the issues worrying the other mums were no longer affecting us. In the end I seemed to be answering all the questions, talking about our experiences and worrying that I was dominating the sessions and being viewed as the snotty know-it-all! The last couple of weeks were hard work as Maya spent the entire sessions rolling over and trying to crawl so was practically impossible to massage.
As the weeks rolled on some people dropped out of the class as I expected - leopard print woman was the first to go, which was good as she was very annoying! The girl from the shelter treated it like a checking in session, she would come and show her face and then disappear. This annoyed me as it is such a valuable resource and she was just wasting it.
Spending time with mums who are very different to me was quite eye opening - I'm used to Hannah, Caroline and co - we all have similar ideas and do things the same. One mother was talking about going back to work and starting to express, however couldn't get anymore than 2 fl oz of milk in an hour, yet she was adament that she was never ever going to use formula. Another talked about what a fantastic sleeper her four month old baby was, despite cluster feeding from 7-11pm, going to bed at 11.30pm and waking a couple of times before 6am - not a good sleeper as far as I am concerned.
At times I felt like I wasn't really entitled to be there, particularly when the course leader was discussing access to benefits and support to one mum. The day someone said how much they liked my change bag in front of the whole class threw me - I just said thanks and that James had bought it for me. I didn't tell them that it was an expensive designer bag as I didn't want to show off.
I feel very bad for my original preconceptions about the Ormiston Centre and the people that go there. I wasn't the only person in the class who wasn't a typical 'Sure Start centre mum' - yet we got a lot out of the course and it was good to mix with other people, not just mums with cleaners and expensive cars and who put their kids into nursery just to have a bit of free time (which I don't have, or do by the way). Maya even posed for some promotion photos with the Ormiston Trust MD!
Centres like the Ormiston Centre do a fantastic job and hopefully if a wider range of people use them they will have less of a stigma attached to them.
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