How do you ‘choose’ play dates?

[FurrylittleMonkie]

Ok, so name change if necessarily allowed for this one obviously! But if you have younger dc without obvious established friendships, what criteria do you think you use when trying to organise play dates? I’ve noticed it seems to be a lot on gender, even very early on, if parents are similar in some way, anything else you’ve noticed or you have noticed in yourself?!

Preschool then “which of my ‘mum friends’ do I want to invite over for a coffee while the kids play?” - school aged ask them who they’d like to have over?

I've always put it off until someone's mum says "Little Timmy would love to have your DS for a playdate". If Little Timmy and his family seem ok, I go along with it, and then I return the playdate, and then it continues. If DS were relying on me to initiate playdates, he would only ever see my friends' children outside school .

My ds is 17 months old and he has quite a busy schedule of toddler classes and stay and plays. There are two mums that I keep in touch with that I met at two of these classes and we arrange to meet up for little play area dates every so often 🤷‍♀️

When mine were babies, I made friends at baby/toddler groups and we would meet for coffee and the children would play together.

I'm still friends with a couple of the mums and meet them regularly. Our children are nearly 16. They remember each other but aren't particularly friends (went to different schools and we meet up without them so they don't really see each other).

My DC are 2 and under, so it’s mainly NCT friends and other local mums with DC the same age.