Dissapointed - co-sleeping meet up

Yesterday I attending a co-sleeping "meet-up".  I was really excited about it, and was hopefully there would be at least one mom there who was onto baby #2.  I was also hopeful that it would be facilitated and not just a free for all.  It ended up being all new mom's, mostly with little babies and a total free-for-all.  I didn't contribute one thing to the group.  For the most part I could even hear because the facilitators daughter was throwing this hard plastic ball the entire time.

Let me address the ball throwing first.  Pooks was having a great time playing with the facilitators 3 year old daughter.  The got a hold of this hard ball and the 3 year old started throwing it down really hard.  I didn't want Pookie to do that because I was concerned it would land on one of the little babies, also it was extremely noisy.  I took her aside, kneeled down and explained that yes she could play with the toys, but that she could not throw them because it could hurt the babies.  She did a little demo of not throwing the toy and pointed to the babies.  She ran off and did not throw the toys once.   I just couldn't understand why the 3 year olds mom couldn't do the same.  She even had chances to get rid of the toy, but just handed it back.  It was weird because she seemed uncomfortable with the ball throwing.   My only thought was that she knew if she intervened at all her daughter would have a tantrum.  I don't know to me it looked like unparenting, rather than gentle discipline.  I feel like this is exactly what a lot of people mistake GD for and why people think it doesn't work.

The big disappointment was that it was totally unfacilitated.  Other that intros the rest was a free-for-all.   I am not good in big groups like that so I didn't say one thing.  I felt like I had a lot to offer since I was one of only 2 mom's with 2 year olds - most were under 1.  There were lots of topics that we never got to since it wasn't led.  There was also a big talk on getting your baby to take a bottle, which was frustrating since it was totally off topic.  I felt like some bad advice was being given and one of the other mom's tried to intervene with more solid advice but she wasn't really let in to the convo.  Anyways I left feeling pretty horrible because I had paid 10 bucks to just sit there and not even hear or contribute anything.  At least Pooks had a good time.

I figured the other mom's would be pretty earthy, but I only felt like a few were, and I felt like those mom's were pretty quite.  I am sure I saw one of the mom's hit her babies hand as well.  I was so excited that these mom's would be very much like the MDC crowd, and would have thoughts and idea's that were new to me.

I guess I should be thankful that I do have a couple of friends who are into natural living. Perhaps I should give up on going to these groups.  There will be one next week on elimination communication.  Hopefully it will be better.