Why do so many mums ditch their childfree friends?

I suppose in some cases it's because it's stressful to socialise with kids in tow, divide your time and attention and so on, and life is often busy so its hard to find the time without them around.
Id take a stab in the dark and venture that when friends take the attitude that you're a martyr who thinks you're the only one to have given birth, it doesn't do much to keep the flames of friendship burning either.

Lovely advice!

Yes exactly. Sorry, but with the best will in the world, a childless/childfree woman is not as busy or tired and worn out as a woman with children. In the majority of cases anyway. And especially if the mum works - even part time. She will be far busier and more worn out and frazzled than a childless/childfree woman.

Absolutely friendships drift and it's completely understandable when children come along.
My post was to a poster saying OP sounds utterly horrendous which isn't true and unnecessarily nasty.

One hour is several years on earth.

God I love being with my child free friends - I love going out with people who don’t want to talk about children and just go out and have a wild night

All the child-free friends I had before dc, I still have. We never drifted apart. I saw them less for years, but I saw everyone less cuz I was busy as.

Most of the 'mum' friends I had after having DC, have years later drifted apart after the children grew up. Or are casual acquaintances now. We didn't really have that much in common apart from raising children. (Some of course are still good friends.)

I have friends with children and friends without, have maintained great relationships with all friends in the last five or so years since we started having babies.

When I’m meeting up with friends and I’m with my toddler, I prefer to meet up with other friends who have children too, and our children can play together, we all “get it” when we get distracted by our children and conversation doesn’t flow quite so well. I just find it easy.
However when I meet up with friends when I have my son with me and they don’t have children, I find it harder. I feel guilty when they’re telling me a story and I have to keep turning away to tend to my child, and conversation is very stop start. They smile and say they don’t mind and they understand, but I just feel bad. I don’t feel very “present” with my friends when my son is there too.

Id rather meet up with friends without our children, it’s easier and more fun. So love a Tuesday night cinema trip or Friday night meal out. But they’re harder to come by when organising childcare etc, and being knackered from work.

So I’d say more of my socialising is with other mum friends, walks and parks just because it’s easier. It doesn’t mean I love my child free friends any less. But I definitely see mum friends more because it’s just…easier.

This isn't my experience, having been both a childless woman and a woman with children.

I thought I was busy before, working full-time, volunteering, having hobbies, but I honestly had no idea how relentless and exhausting parenthood would be.

I signed up for it, of course, but I didn't have a lot of capacity for friends or nights out for a few years.

And yet friendships drift, not infrequently, when life circumstances change, and/or distance is involved (which it sounds as if it is in the OP’s case), regardless of earlier investment or effort, regardless of whether children are involved.

Isn’t it perfectly possible that if the PP lives at a distance to the others that they’re reluctant to invite her to trek all the way to some soft play thing where an overtired/teething/out of sorts child, or one who gets a bad knock, has a poonami through their second set of clothes etc might mean one or more parents have to leave again after half an hour?

I remember once inviting an old friend to our house for lunch when DH was away and DS was under two. She’d driven an hour and a half, and we hadn’t seen one another for months, and DS for some reason kicked off, wouldn’t nap and just screamed and tantrummed, and I felt terrible for putting her through an experience that was so thoroughly unenjoyable for both of us!

What might look like "ditching" to someone who's life hasn't significantly changed is almost certainly a woman's who's life has changed to a focus on survival and much less capacity for fun and friendship.

Honestly, having a newborn is really hard work, it's relentless, and you don't get time off.

The thing about parents is that they have been people without children beforehand. So they know how busy and tired they were. And how busy and tired they now are.

I've worked nights, 12 or 24 hour shifts in very stressful environments. DD almost broke me. I was clinically unwell from sleep deprivation. And critically, couldn't ever have a day off, or a night with sleep.

You don't understand. That's not your fault. And I kept in touch with childfree friends so parents do. If you'd mentioned your last paragraph to me while I was unwell, I wouldn't have stayed friends with you.

OP, I think a lot of people are just wishy washy, they don't particularly need an excuse.
My best friend (or what I thought) had a child 10 years before me. I did all the kid dates, went to her house after bedtime, babysat etc.
I had my son when hers was 10 and she did nothing to help me out. Wouldn't come to my house, only ever wanted to go to the pub, acted like I was an inconvenience whenever I couldn't go out, certainly showed me.

I think this is a really good example of why parents often socialise with other parents only. If the host in this scenario were a parent of children of similar age, they would be far less likely to be bothered about any of this and would probably appreciate the fact that it's not just them!

Oh yeah. Had this. They were very excited to come over for lunch but nap time ruled everything. we happily moved things around for them. They said they’d be over at 2. They finally arrived at 3.30. Everyone starving, food overcooked.
We sat down to eat for them to say ‘oh we’ve eaten already’. They stayed for 20 minutes faffing with the baby and then left.
Never invited them again.

This 😂 I used to roll my eyes at my sister when she would berate me for saying I was tired after a night out when she had 3 kids aged 4 and under. I was tired, and so was she, but the difference was, I was going to go to bed that night and sleep it off, whereas she would have another sleepless night, like she had endured for the last 4 years. There’s a difference.

She doesn't, she sounds hurt and disappointed. She's put effort into her friendships and found out they are meeting behind her back, it's understandable she feels annoyed.

I’ve found the opposite, that as soon as I became a mum my childfree friends weren’t interested

Not sure. The real kicker is when they want you to step up your efforts while they make no effort. Don’t even get me started on the crazy entitled requests “why don’t you leave your house at 5am so you get to mine for nap time as that’s really convenient for me”. Or the self absorbed commentary “no one with no children can ever get tired!” after l had done 5 12 hour nights in a row

I have found the opposite. When I was childfree and had some childfree friends, they ditched ME when I had a baby. In fact 3 of them were quite cruel and mean, (well, one was just distant and ghosted me,) and they were very negative about children... I realised afterwards that it was them projecting, as they were jealous, but at the time I didn't realise it.

Not saying all childfree women are jealous before anyone comes at me, just that these particular women were. All 3 women went on to have children within 3-5 years.

.

Do not understand how extreme of the responses on here on either side.

Most of my close old friends don't have children yet (unusual as we are in our late 30s). I've never subjected them to a soft play, they came to see the babies and to my children's christenings but usually we meet up in the evenings. We see each other about once a month or every six weeks which is pretty good going as we live in different areas. We gossip, talk about politics/ work/ books/ holidays etc. I am not just a mother robot and don't feel the need to talk about my kids all the time and I have Mum friends for that anyway.

Well to be fair I didn’t say any of that. My point is just that I felt very very busy before I had kids - and then I had kids and became a thousand times busier. It is hard for chilldfree people to fully understand how busy/difficult life can be with kids (or maybe they do understand and that’s why they’ve chosen not to do it!). So it makes sense that people will mostly socialise with other people that can understand what they’re going through.

Quite. Your friend’s potentially long term relationship status pales into insignificance when you have IMPORTANT things to consider like poo frequency and latch quality

Do you have kids?

Omg why would anyone go to soft play if they weren’t having to go with their own children?

they are hell holes to be avoided if at all possible.