[quote TooManyPlatesInMotion]@drramsesemerson it is hard to predict how another parent will respond to the idea. I know this mum pretty well and we can kind of asking each other some fairly leading questions before I took the plunge. Her response was one of total relief!
This won't last forever. It won't. You and your DD will get through this. We all will. And in the interim, at least we get to come here! 
[/quote]
This is the difficulty I've had.
Family at a distance and no conviently newly retired grandparents anyway.
My two good personal friends, one's 15mi away in the next county and doesn't drive. Has been over-cautious. Not a D, no moralising involved, but wouldn't meet the families up outside until the very end of August. Other friend is local, but drowning in work. Our children are a bit out of synch.
School mums, I don't know brilliantly. With the school nursery there's a SAHM/ Working mum split where families bond at the nursery gates, and because those frienships are fed a lot out of school, they hold in school. I've fallen into the gap in the middle because I was working FT when DS1 started, and kept DS2 in nursery as it worked better at that point. Then I stopped working as I was too overstretched without support (DH was working away a lot at that time) but the SAHM bonds were too well established, and we slip into a social gap. Ironically we're at the stage that a lot now work P/ T, but the social bonds have stuck.