If you have a baby in Sweden or arrive with a very young infant, you may be invited to join a parents (föräldrar) group at the clinic. This is normally attended by the mums since they are the ones at home with the child in the early days – but this need not be the case if your circumstances are different. The BVC would normally aim to have the first meeting when all the babies are about one month old but much depends on how many babies have arrived around the same time as yours does. You may find a wider spread of ages. If you are going to a standard BVC, the meetings are likely to be held in Swedish although there are some BVCs who run special international parents groups if they have a number of non-Swedish parents with similar aged babies. This is only likely in one of the big cities, and even then just within certain areas.

The group will probably have a few sessions scheduled in to discuss specific baby related topics – feeding, sleeping, activities, safety and so on. Once those sessions have been completed, it is then left up to the parents involved to arrange follow-up meetings locally.

Parents groups can be an excellent way of meeting other new mums who almost certainly live very close to you. It is also an excellent way of meeting Swedes on a social level which is not necessarily the easiest thing to do. However, you probably will need to be able to get by in Swedish, or have a partner or friend who is willing to help out with translating. If not, ask your nurse in advance what she recommends – she may know some of the other mums already and have an idea whether they would be happy to speak English for at least part of the time. Unfortunately this is not always the case and we have heard of several cases where foreign mums have been told they are not “suitable” for the group and no other alternative has been given.