A thank you to our local sure start children's centre

Before I fell pregnant with G I'd never even heard of a children's centre. Our first visit was for our booking appointment and didn't see very much of the centre but the midwife got us to fill out a form to register.  At this point wasn't sure what I was signing up to but when the invitation came through the post to go to a 'bump birth and beyond' course we were so glad we had.  This was a 3wk evening course and there were about 7 other couples from all over s ribble. It was very informal informative course and highly recommended to anyone expecting their first baby they covered everything you wanted to know (even quite a bit you probably didn't want to!). There was a representative from our local centre at Bamber bridge there, and Laura invited us to pop in sometime prebirth to visit and see some of the activities.  So whilst on mat leave I ventured out for a walk and was greeted by her smiley face as she recognised me and brought me in to see the baby group.  We chatted and she said she'd ring in a few weeks to see how the birth had gone.  True to her word she did  was lovely having someone to talk to.  She gave me a list of suitable groups for when I felt ready to leave the house and the option to ring anytime.

When G was 7wks I was going stir crazy so set off for baby rap n rhyme on a Monday morning it just so happened that one of the mummy's from BBB group turned up that day aswell so there was another friendly face.  At that time Riff was running the group and she was an instant hit interacting with the babies G instantly fell in love mesmerised by her lovely sparkly bright scarves!  We were made to feel welcome and encouraged to return the following day for bouncing babies another brilliant group with a bit of everything there were play stations set up and a messy table a little apprehensive of this at first but soon got a dab hand of hand and footprint painting realising it was as much (if not more!) for the mummy's as the babies! 

We have met some lovely mummy's and babies at these groups and we have regular get-togethers its lovely watching them all grow up at different stages.

We have done practically all the baby classes including baby moves, which really helped G's development, and baby massage which was at Lostock hall centre. We also went to the majority of Bamber bridges summer programme which was brilliant I think our favourite was probably the mini chefs 

closely followed by teddy bears picnic!

As G has got older we now go to the toddler versions of the groups we started with which are mostly run by Merle and Amanda. It has taken until this week to realise G needs these outlets to express himself and burn off some energy, especially now I'm 33 wks pregnant with no 2.  He proves this by being centre of attention in the singing he's turning into a bit of a diva! But it's great seeing new sides of his personality coming through and it's all thanks to the help and support of all at the centre! Thank you!