That's ok. I think it depends on what you are wanting to get out of them. I never needed them to form a support group or network of pepole with similar age children. We had friends with similar age children and I find it difficult to make new friends of lasting friendship as I'm pretty quiet and shy initially. I went for the sole purpose of finding out about the content each week. After the sessions I never met up with the people again!
My NHS classes were exactly the same titles as the NCT ones. I think it was 6 or 8 evening classes. The titles were identical and most of the speakers were actually the same (as they stated they were doing nct groups also) As such I felt it was a waste signing up to the NCT classes. They're very expensive I felt for the sim pl e purpose literally just the classes and then not using the other benefits and having a network of friends formed for me for me and entry to sales etc. I guess if utilised fully a d if you need a network formed for you then NCT might be worth it.
TBH there was a whole cross section of ppl in our nhs classes. Made for amusing evenings when one lady commented she would be out socialising when baby was 2 weeks old as nanny would be caring for baby and she was refusing to even try BF when another lady in our group was very supportive of breastfeeding and wanted to do it at all costs (teen mum). It caused some interesting arguing in our meetings! Given that situation it wasn't full of 'chavs' which I have heard people saying they were paying the money for NCT classes to avoid.
Overall i think it really varies on the classes available. In all honesty mine did little to help when actually in the situation of labour but I felt like I a as more prepared having gained extra knowledge. We did herbal pain relief, massaging, the general principals of labour process, breastfeeding, general caring and nappies etc.
