To have tried and failed to make mum friends

I've never been in with the mum crowd. When mine were younger I would get talking to other mums at parent and toddler groups but it wouldn't really extend beyond that. Maybe it would if I'd made more of an effort but I'm an introvert and with four kids I was wrapped up in them with not a lot of headspace to focus on prioritising new people.
With the school mums I've found that if you do make friendships they can be a bit wishy washy and when the kids move on, the friendship just fizzles out. In my experience of the school pick up, there was only one " clique" and they were unpleasant. The rest were just people who chat to each other with varying degrees of how well they know each other.

I never really made friends at baby groups. Nursery and school gates are definitely better. Find the class parties a good chance to socialise with other parents and have clicked with a few of the mums over the years, however school and kids the same age are definitely the main thing we have in common.
There's occasionally mum nights out, pta quizzes etc and I always go to these.
Keep doing what your doing, don't have high expectations and eventually the friendships will follow.

Yeah sorry if that sounds a bit harsh.

But I have seen this play out so many times on here and it’s a mindset thing. There are threads on here on a daily basis from women feeling sleighted because of the “cliques” in some nursery or school.

Invariably all this is is that people have their own friends and an OP’s nose is out of joint for not immediately being welcomed into those friendships. But it’s a misplaced hope.

The thing is you won’t be admitted to every friendship group because life’s not like that. People will make their own friends. If you make peace with being chilled and accepting that people have a right to make the friendships they want and not accuse them of being cliquey you will save yourself a huge amount of pain and heartache.

Your children will make their own friends - not something you can do for them.

Baby friends and mum friends are transient OP. You may make one or two who will last through the various stages of your life, but those people will be rare. My kids are teens now. Am I still in touch with the mum friends I made when they were babies? No. Am I still friends with the mum friends I made when they were in primary? No. I see them from time to time and I wouldn't say that we're not friends, but they're no longer people that I see regularly. Our kids moved on to other schools, other activities, other friends, and so did the parents. The only sure thing about life is change. Roll with the changes. Make your friends among your interests, not from people who just happened to pop out a baby at the same time as you, because that's all you've got in common and over time it's not enough to sustain a friendship.

I found school to be much different yes. I made plenty of good friends when my kids went to school.

Which is why I asked why she wanted mum friends.

Stop trying to make “mum friends”. What even is a “mum friend”? Friends are friends. Mums are not a different species from other people.

If you relax and take people as they come and don’t overinvest and overthink you have a much better chance of making friends than if you imbue something with a significance it can’t ever live up to. Don’t expect too much and learn to take things as they come and you will be pleasantly surprised.

And don’t expect a ready made social life just because your kid is at a school. School is for the kids not for you. If you go into it trying to build your friendship network I guarantee you will end up finding it “cliquey” and “bitchy” (as per the threads on here daily from people who can’t deal with school).

So many people are their own worst enemies here by massively building school up in their heads as a big social opportunity for the parents and then get jealous and shitty when other parents have previous pre-existing friendship groups. Don’t be one of those people: it will make you look petty and it won’t help your kids.

To be honest, I don’t really speak to my NCT group anymore. Frankly, the only thing I really had in common was that we had sex at roughly the same time and got pregnant.

We’ve got a really nice group of friends now we’re at school, very lucky that we naturally walk in with a fun group in the mornings. I find making friends really hard. Baby and toddler groups everyone seems very wrapped up in their own stuff.

My eldest started school in September and I've found the school mums much more easy to make friends with than mums from toddler groups/nursery.

There's an active class WhatsApp group that people have used to organise a coffee morning, and drinks. We've also been to a couple of birthday parties and hosted DS' birthday party for the whole class, plus a couple of park meet ups and playdates, so we've got to know a lot of people to say hi to.

You do have to put yourself out there a bit - like making friends anywhere - but with school there's a sense that it's worth getting to know people as our kids are likely to be in the same class for the next 7+ years, and we are all on roughly the same timetable and quite local to each other, which is different to toddler groups.

Good for you.

Maybe the op feels and wants different things.

Parker231

many parents want to make friends with other parents of children the same age, as they can share experiences of what is happening to their changing babies at the same time.

it means they can be sociable on maternity leave together and have WhatsApp chat groups

it might not be for everyone, I don’t have particular mum friends made at this time. For many though it’s a life saver and helps

I'm not a very friendly or sociable person but get on well with the school mums. From time to time they'll organise drinks and I'll occasionally tag along. It's sort of unavoidable when your children make friends and you're taking them to parties and play dates etc. My DS is inseparable from a boy in his class and so I've built a relationship with his family over time as the boys wants to be together as much as possible.
If I were looking to make friendships it would be easy enough.

Why do you want mum friends? I didn’t do any baby classes or groups and as DT’s went to breakfast and after school club, I was never at the school gates. DT’s never lacked for friends or invites to parties.
My friends, built from my school days, Uni, work, extended family, hobbies are totally separate from DT’s.