To ditch my antenatal group friends even though DD (three) enjoys spending time with their children?

[letitwork]

Of the 6 of us in our antenatal group I have stayed in touch with three other women. Our children have grown up from the newborn baby phase through to pre school age together.

I've sometimes found it challenging to get along ok with these friends. We have the stereotypical 'friends because of the children' arrangement.

I have a small number of very close friends who I would do anything for and have nothing in common with in terms of lifestyle (for e.g. most of them not married/partnered or have children) but our friendships work, because we just click, and our circumstances don't come into it, if that makes sense?

Anyway, cut to the chase. These friends I made when I was pregnant with my first. They are OK but increasingly I am finding it harder and harder to socialise with them. It's impossible to move them away from talking about our children to any other topic. And I mean any other topic - from the situation in Libya, the economy through to the X Factor and Strictly Come Dancing, they will not entertain talking about anything that isn't child related.

On top of that (and more of an issue for me) is an undercurrent of competitiveness around the chuildren. I guess it was like this when they were babies and I turned a blind eye but I've noticed that the others seem to still see things that our three year olds do as a competition. For example, who is dry at night - who is 'accomplished' at this, and who is not. The children are three Everything is a 'milestone' or a competition or a brag. I have a few other friends with similar aged children who I get on far better with, and I notice that we NEVER talk about 'milestones'. In fact, we rarely talk about our children at all as we have other things to chat about

Anyway, very longwinded, I'm sorry. But DD is close to the children of these friends, but I find that spending time with them leads to an unpleasant taste. The dry at night thing is just an example, there is/has been competition over everything. I can give more examples if required, I don't mean to dripfeed but this post is long enough already.

Anyway - AIBU to cut off contact with these people, even though DD enjoys seeing their children? DD started pre school in Sept and is loving it and already has made lots of friends and been to birthday parties etc. I'm just wondering if now might be the time to make a break for it?

In a nutshell:-

Drains - people who take without giving
Radiators - people who give without taking

Thats a good analogy Exit

YANBU

I totally don't get this making friends with people at the ante natal group thing.

I went to the group - learnt exactly nothing. It was patronsising and I couldn't see the point of it at all. 10 hours of my life I wont get back but hey ho.

I certainly didn't bother to engage with any one else on the course other than a smile and a "hello" on arrival each week. No one else spoke to each other either and there was certainly no socialising outside of the group. A big relief to me as I can't think of much more tedious than talking to random women about their pregnancies, births and children.

I have no desire to "meet other new mums" thank you very much.

I think you've done well to last this long. They sound terminally dull. Ditch away.

YANBU- seriously move on OP. I totally understand. I wish I had done that earlier tbh. My NCT group were nice women but very, very conservative and well off. I am completely different. They all had huge, posh houses and didn't have to work after their DCs were born, I love my tiny, cluttered house but they all used to make little snide comments about it and yes, talk incessantly about their kids.

One afternoon one of them asked how I was getting on being back at work PT. I said it was a nightmare, i was shattered, still suffering PND and struggling as a single parent. She said "OH yes, but it must be nice to have the pin money"!!!!!!!!!!!!!

She didn't mean to be horrible she just didn't compute that I had to go back to work and that this was paying my rent but for me it was such a naive, ignorant comment that I realised we had NOTHING in common. That was a typical sort of comment really. I started to distance myself after that and have never regretted it.

I never went to NCT and other baby groups and I'm glad of it. Sometimes I see big groups of them in the park and shudder a bit - I'm sure that they can be wonderfully supportive, but in the highly-charged anxiety-fueled, sleepless, competitive world of early parenting (with people you've only just met), I can't really imagine it not turning into a psychodrama.

Mind you, I find big groups hard anyway

I like talking about parenting and children, but only with people I genuinely trust

JamieComeHome that is exactly what it was like! If I were to do it all again I would avoid NCT and the like the same as you.

"Sometimes I see big groups of them in the park and shudder a bit" oh yes, I do too. I think what a shame to be wasting precious time and energy with a bunch of people you only meet up with in a group because you don't like them enough to see individually at any other time.

Thank you all. Some really good advice. I'm going to follow it and start extricating myself, wish me luck!

Your DD will quickly forget them, honest.

Oh god, this sounds like the postnatal group my HV set up. We were all career gals who were taking time out in order to be SAHMs, so you'd think we'd have something in common. However, some of the women in my group channelled the competitive streak that they were no longer using in their careers into their childrearing instead. Did my head in. One of them tried to convince us all that her daughter had started to talk when she was four months old. FFour months old. The child could barely hold her head up, FFS. I tried to stay in contact as they were the only 'mum-friends' I had, but eventually I had to ditch them as they were just so DULL. A few of them Facebook-friended me before I decided to sever all contact, so I now have a good old laugh every now and then reading updates about how their DCs started school last week and have already been give War And Peace as their reading book.

OP - I found I made some actual friends when my two joined the local preschool. I joined the preschool committee and I've met some really nice people, who don't just talk about the latest milestone (yawn)

Panics she was in same group of friends as OP

I dumped a group of baby friends a while back. I got sick of the comp of milestones, especially as dd wasn't making them. I found when I needed support the werent great
Just slowly withdraw, be fine