Tawk Amongst Yourselves - I Will Give You A Tawpic

- "Linda Richman" - Saturday Night Live

I mentioned the other day that I joined my first ever chat group. These things have never interested me in the least.

I was looking for some SB-related info on the web and I wasn't finding what I was looking for. Then I remembered that months ago someone had mentioned to me that one of the baby sites on the Internet had a SB chat group that she thought was helpful. Sure enough, I found it on Babycenter.com.

After looking into it I decided to join. It's pretty simple, really. You fill out a profile, upload a photo if you wish and you are up and running. I posted my question and started receiving answers from other SB parents almost immediately.

What makes the Babycenter chat groups so helpful is the format. If you have a question, you log on, punch it in and hit submit. Here's were the fun begins - you never have to log back on again.

Babycenter will send you a "Daily Digest" e-mail once a day. In it, you will find all the responses to your question that you submitted the day before. In addition, it will list links to all the other topics submitted the day before. If you see one that interests you, click the link and read through.

It is so simple, so clean and so useful that I wish I had joined back at the beginning of this whole journey.

Of course, SB isn't the only chat group they have - there are dozens covering just about every topic from trying to conceive to pregnancy and parenthood.

One of the best things for me personally is that now that Annabelle is 6+ months old, we are far enough down the road that we actually have tips and advice to offer to other parents who aren't so far along in the journey. It feels so good to get that e-mail everyday and see a question that you totally know the answer to and are able to help out someone else for a change.

Although SB is a pretty complex and specialized topic, I would imagine that parents of typical children would get that same "lending a hand" fuzzy feeling by answering someone's question about the best bottle or diaper or teething medicine.

I just can't say enough about the way they have the whole thing set up - it totally works and I highly recommend that anyone who is considering having children on up through your baby's first birthday check it out. There may be a topic that interests you.

Chat rooms as a whole are still a turn-off to me but this one works and it is a BIG help.