How to reconnect with childfree friends after years in a baby bubble ?

[Gingerdeer]

I had two babies in the space of 18 months. Both EBF so I’ve not had much of a social life. I used to have a big fun social group who are mostly childfree. I have slowly drifted away from most of them over the past couple of years - I don’t think they particularly wanted to travel to me and it was too difficult for me to travel to them.

DC2 is 9mo now and I finally feel ready to emerge from my baby bubble and start going out / having fun - but I’m scared the ship has sailed. I don’t get invited to things anymore and the group chat has gone dead (I suspect there is a new one that I’m not in now).

How should I approach this?!?! Will they laugh in my face if I try to organise a meet-up? Should I just announce that I’m ready to be fun again and wait for the invites to roll in??? It’s been over 3 years of me either being pregnant or breastfeeding! HELP

I'd approach a couple of them individually and be pretty open about it. Ask them about their lives and say that you would love to catch up.

I'd apologise for having gone AWOL, and suggest drinks, coffee etc

Invite them to something. We were the first of our friends to have babies by years. They still came over for dinner and an overnight or to Sunday lunch. I suspect if these friends could never be bothered to come to you and none of you could even effort up a lunch invite in all these years, they are party friends who were quite happy to drop you when you weren’t out doing shots with them. True friends would have wanted to be in your life even if you could only do coffee.

But OP is the one that drifted from them.

Should I just announce that I’m ready to be fun again and wait for the invites to roll in???

It doesn't really work this way so I wouldn't go in with this attitude. You'll have to put some work in. Sometimes if you haven't bothered with a friend in ages, the vibe just isn't there.

Honestly I would focus on forging new friendships. You basically ignored these people for 3 years and naturally they will have moved on. I think it would be daft to expect them to want to meet up now you've decided they are worth your time.

I think that's a very harsh way of putting it. OP hasn't provided any specifics but while her friend group may not have known just how difficult it is parenting young children back-to-back, they must have had some idea and could have offered to pop over and have a more relaxed hangout. If they didn't, that's still fine, sometimes people really aren't aware and there's no reason to hold it against them.

OP, just message a couple of the people you think you're closest to or might have had the closest friendship at some point within that group (or whoever you thought was the most amicable) and arrange to meet up with them one-on-one and go from there. If they're normal people, they'll respond positively and there might be a reasonable effort that has to be maintained to get back within the wider friend group but it should be fine.

I would approach one or two of them individually and test the water.

All you can do is reach out and see what happens.

Have you not stayed in contact at all? I jad babies a good 10 years before my friends and whilst I wasn't out partying with them every week, we still kept in contact and met for the big events. Now theyve had kids (10 ish) and ours are grown (20 ish) it's all back to how it was when we were teens!

I should have mentioned there are 1 or 2 closer friends from the group who I have seen fairly regularly! But it’s more about rekindling with the wider group - some I haven’t seen for over a year now.

i did make an effort to see them in the first 2 years, and I do text them on birthdays etc. but since I had my 2nd baby last summer, it has made it really difficult to hang out with them! I suppose they are “party friends” rather than my best friends - but I’d like to start partying with them again!

This. Sounds like you have been very caught up in yourself and not put the work in with them. While conversely expecting plenty from them. You may well have permanently burnt your bridges

A friend of mine pulled a similar stunt and after the best part of a decade of crazy demands (me getting up at 5am to visit her as it “fits in well with naps”), disrespect (“only people with children get really tired -no one else does” according to her), irritability if l planned to do something e.g. weekend away with husband, gig etc
Then l wasn’t interested funnily enough! I don’t know why women do this, l would say men but l am yet to encounter a man who drops everyone and everything in these circumstances

Reach out, suggest meeting for a coffee or other kind of catch up. Apologise for being crap, show interest in their lives. Put yourself out there.

I drifted from all my friends when I have children, I always thought it would rekindle when life was less busy but reality is they all moved in without me. I miss them a lot. My children are now secondary school age, the ship has sailed. But I know a lot of it was on me, I didn't put in enough effort, lives were in different places. Don't let that happen.
The same happened to DP, we were young and so consumed by the baby bubble. Also we couldn't afford much childcare so worked back to back shifts with each other which meant neither of us were ever children free to see friends.

I haven’t expected anything from them?! I don’t blame them or hold judgement for them not trying to see me. They weren’t interested in hanging out with a baby or toddler, and that’s fine.

The whole point of the post is that I’ve been caught up in raising two young kids and want to start making more effort now that my youngest doesn’t need to be breastfed 24/7. I just feel embarassed and nervous about how to start doing that.

I think you contact them, be honest and don’t make excuses. They don’t need/want to know all the ins and outs of the last year or so, they want to hear ‘I’ve haven’t been a great friend but I have missed you/having fun with you’.

As a child-free person who has been dumped by friends I’d respect that more than loads of excuses about breastfeeding and sleep.

The parent friends who wanted to maintain a relationship with me did, even if we weren’t out on the lash. The ones that disappeared, I don’t massively want back now tbh.

And don’t say ‘baby bubble’ to them. It’s twee and annoying. 😄

Some really unecessarily harsh comments here!
It sounds like these friends weren't that interested in kid hangs. And OP wasn't able to go out in evenings. No one has done anything wrong it's just different life stages. Now she's in a slightly different parenting phase so she can go out in the evenings.

OP just text them individually and say "sorry I've not been able to hang out as much but I can do finally do evenings again and I have really missed you". They probably won't quite understand the EBF constraints but I'm sure they'll be pleased to meet up.

She could've stayed in touch though. If I were the friends I'd feel quite used being dropped when I wasn't useful and picked back up when the op needed something from me again.

I agree with the person that said just be honest that you’ve been a bit crap and missed them. See what happens. Don’t start going into long explanations about breastfeeding and not sleeping etc.

I lost a lot of my friends when they had kids as they only wanted to hang out with each other and talk babies. I’ll be honest when any of them have tried to reach out years later I haven’t bothered replying. I’ve moved on and made other friends. The few friends with kids I didn’t lose were ones that still made an effort to meet up occasionally and even if they needed to bring a baby they actually spoke about other things.

One friend I’ve known since we were 11 and she’s has had 3 children and even when she couldn’t come out in the early days she’d text and ask about my life and send birthday cards etc. Whenever we meet I’ll ask how the kids are, she’ll fill me in for 5 minutes then we chat about anything other than kids.

To be clear - I have stayed in touch with these friends over text / social media. I just haven’t seen them in the past year as they live over an hour away and have little interest in hanging out with a baby.

It’s interesting how harsh some of these comments are though, particularly from child-free people. I suppose I was hoping I would get some grace from my friends and understanding that it’s been tough having two babies so close together - but now I’m not so sure they would see it that way. Will they just think I’m a horrible baby-obsessed user that’s dumped them?

also interesting that some people have called breastfeeding an “excuse”. I am hoping my friends will understand that meant I truly couldn’t be away from my babies for more than a few hours. (DC1 refused a bottle despite huge efforts. I even had to get DH to bring her to me every few hours on a hen do once!!!)

This is my experience of friends with kids. They don’t disappear completely.

We didn’t even really have to adjust in my case as they used to party way more than me - I’ve even been the babysitter for a couple.

It’s mainly only MN I hear this happening.

OP if you’ve stayed in contact and didn’t disappear completely I think it’s fine.

Maybe because I have friends all over the world, but I don’t think you need to see friends face to face for them to still be your friends.

Contact a few of them and ask how they are, share a little about you and your baby and suggest a coffee or something?

What effort have they made to spend time with you??
It’s true that you have perhaps withdrawn a bit but what you’re describing isn’t friendship ending in my opinion. You’ve kept in touch via messages etc. It’s been less than a year since you saw them all?? You have, in fact, actually seen some of them?? If my friends had given up on me in this scenario I wouldn’t be counting them as much of a friend.
Real friends give each other grace and understanding.
You also say ‘they didn’t want to travel to me’ - so what effort have they made in this relationship?

To be clear, I don’t think breastfeeding is an excuse and I do understand the limitations in socialising when you are breastfeeding. I know this because I have some very close friends who are parents. I’m close to them and their kids.

I just don’t really want to hear it from a friend who hasn’t bothered to try and see me for a year and they might not want to either. I know rhe reasons but it doesn’t have to put a friendship on hold if people want to see each other.

If they haven’t really bothered with you either then that changes things.

By that logic they kind of dropped her as well when they didn't bother to come and see her. She stayed in touch remotely as did they. Now she can travel again to see them.

Op I'd very casually drop into the group chat, Hi how are you all doing, not seen you all in ages, missing you all, when's good for a catchup?