by Ellie Tat

Created on: August 18, 2008   Last Updated: December 04, 2010

While I was pregnant I attended an antenatal class, which covered labor, early motherhood and newborn care. The motherhood and newborn care sections seemed quite surreal at the time. No class can prepare you for parenting until you have embarked on the journey.

Now I can only laugh at how unrealistic my expectations were. I thought I would have no problem dealing with unsolicited advice, so I did not put much effort into the exercises the course offered in this area. Yet, I was in tears on my very first day out of hospital after spending a few hours with my mother-in-law. I did not pay any attention to the settling section, because my baby was going to fall asleep easily by himself whenever he was tired. He did not start sleeping through the night until he was nearly eighteen months old and falling asleep on his own is still fiction. I was going to have plenty of time to do the household chores. My husband ended up having to do most of them.

I attended the course less than a month before the birth of my son and it did not prepare me for the realities of being a parent of a newborn. Even changing a nappy, a fairly straightforward task, was totally different performed on a live baby compared to the practice doll. Toddler behavior is a more complex issue. Had I taken any classes on it during pregnancy, the subject would have been foreign and meaningless to me at the time. When learning is abstract, it is far less effective than when it is being put into practice immediately.

There is also the time factor. My baby did not become a toddler until a year after my pregnancy was over. It was the most challenging and emotional year of my life, and the steepest learning path I had ever been on. Compared to the real life struggles, knowledge derived from a course would have had no chance to stick. Add to that the usual state of light-headedness and poor concentration during pregnancy and by the time the toddler years came around, I would not have remembered a thing.

That is why I do not think classes on toddler behavior should be offered during pregnancy. It is too early for the knowledge to take deep roots and have any effect on your future parenting. The right moment to take this class is when your baby is becoming a toddler, even though you are less likely to have the time or energy to do it. Only then you will have a chance to implement what you learn immediately, discard what does not work for you and make a good habit of everything else.

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