To think that having a child doesn't absolve you from making an effort with friends?

[Overthinker2016]

Many of my friends are married with children.

I get that their priorities are different from mine now. I get that they are "busier" than childless me (although busy is a bit subjective I think). I am happy to spend time with their children and/or OH for what it's worth (if I was invited to!)

However AIBU to think they should still make a bit of an effort to keep in touch? One friend in particular has been coming back to me with dates since about February .

Do I cut them some slack and just keep on being the one making the effort or just stop and lose some otherwise very nice friends.

Hang on in there.

I had children fairly young (mid 20s). My friends despaired as I no longer had the energy to socialise. Some drifted away, some stuck around. One of the closest, who stuck around, has just had her first baby (we are now late 30s). Our roles have almost completely switched as my eldest is an independent teen and I have more flexibility in socialising and she is exhausted and tied to a BF baby. Suddenly she understands...

Not being patronising, but it is hard if you don't have children to understand how hard the first few years can be. But it doesn't last forever.

For me, there's also a bit of "magical thinking" going on - if I stare at my diary (and DH's) long enough, a slot will emerge that's great for meeting friend X and if it doesn't, it might another time.

What works for me is to plan something "formal" a long time ahead (book a restaurant table etc) as I then sort it with DH.

Could you suggest that?

Someone else might already have mentioned this but sometimes people are self conscious about their house being not as tidy as they would like. Even though going round to your friend's house for a cuppa would be the easiest way to see each other, she might feel she had to spend hours cleaning and tidying before she felt comfortable having a friend round. She might also not want to bf or change baby in front of you, etc., doing these things in front of people you know from before baby can be quite a strange feeling. Depending how close you are, maybe try giving her a call (starting with "do you have a minute to chat?"), Let her know you are missing her and have a catch up by phone, maybe even agree to catch up by phone rather than meet up in the short term.

Plenty of mums also work full time, practy.

The problem with that suggestion is that if you are working full time, often there is no time to go around when you are not at work, that also suits mums.

Yeah, we are aware of that
There's the weekend, or you could always take a half day's holiday. If taking holiday feels like too much of a time commitment just to see a friend, then compare with the newish mums on here who're being asked to "just spare" 2 or 3 hours of free time to see a friend when (if my experience is anything to go by) they probably only have that much time to spare every few weeks at most - and would need to do anything like doctor/dentist/hairdresser appointments in that time.

I have found mums with young children want weekends as family time. Taking annual leave is a big ask when I have 24 days, and also have to visit elderly parents. In reality because of travel time to work, it would need to be a full days annual leave. Half a days annual leave would mean I could meet up at 2pm, and for most mums that would mean meeting for an hour.

I have actually taken annual leave to do this. But it gets frustrating when you are the one making all the compromises and your friend refuses to use any of her weekend time. So yes, I have let friendships fall away.

I just have no mental/physical energy for friends since having DS, beside the odd text. He's 2 now and I'm having another one so it will go on for at least a few more years.. When I look at other people, they seem to become social again when the kids aren't so dependent.

See I totally understand that that might be too much of a time commitment but I hope that you can see that for parents of small children with no childcare, 2 or 3 hours at a time suitable for you is as difficult, if not more. (We also have elderly parents and all the rest of it). If your friends aren't even willing to do weekends then that is a bit crap, but otherwise, there isn't really blame on either side, is there? In that case you could let friendships lapse while their kids are tiny, and then take up again when they are a little older?

Sorry that last was to practy

To all those saying tgat as a non parent op doesn't understand/friend will be tired/have an untidy house/need family time etc, the op has said she will do pretty much anything to spend time with her friend, ops house, friends house, family friendly events week days, weekends.....If you can't find a couple of hours anywhere for months on end then it is a bit shabby and your friends have every right to be upset.

No, if they are not willing to give any time at weekends at all, then I am not interested in picking up friendships several years later.

And to meet at weekends does not require childcare.
Basically the parent is saying the friendship is no longer a priority for me. That is fine, but you don't get to just ignore friends for a few years until it suits you. During the time my friend ignored me, I had a close family member murdered. My friend does not even know that, but now wants to meet up again now her kids have started school. I am ignoring her.

Willing to give time?? You're not owed time :( I don't mean that to sound nasty but say a dozen friends, expecting you to give up time at the weekends.. It's too much.
I'm barely surviving as a parent of a non sleeping baby. I don't have time or energy to give. The time I have, what little it is, gets split between seeing my husband, spending time as a family and Getting Shit Done (the lawn mowed, dentist, doc, grocery shopping, etc.
I haven't been out to see a friend since he was born ten months ago. I haven't had a morning or an afternoon to myself at all. The idea of booking a restaurant table is almost surreal.

I don't mean any of that to sound unpleasant but it's just my reality. I think some people cope better. Women on my FB are leaving the baby with friends or family at weeks old, going out, seeing friends, pRtying. I'm not sure how they manage it :(

I don't think the OP is being unreasonable. Yes it is much harder when you have children, especially tiny ones to manage at home.
But, you only have to look at the many threads on here to see people feel they then don't have any friends when the kids are older and struggle with loneliness.

You can't have it both ways. While a friend without children is likely to be able to make more effort, it cannot be expected that a friend with children makes zero effort because they are too busy. Yes, friendships may pick up again when the children are older, but you may find friends have moved on.

There is nothing to stop a friend with small children text messaging back to say "It's hard for me to get out the house, but you're welcome to come and see me for a cuppa, it would be nice for some adult company" for example.

Friendships, like any relationship is a 2 way steet. Zero effort from one for 2+years is no way to maintain any relationship.

Quite surprised by the number of people embarrassed to have an untidy house. I don't really know anyone who would be embarrassed by this, myself included. But weirdly my house is much tidier than my flat used to be, pre-kids. There's more of an incentive to keep it nice as I'm in it ALL THE TIME ;o)

I think friends are owed some time. An hour for a coffee on the occasional weekend for example.

Iliketea That's precisely it. Because if you have time, as a parent, to make arrangements with your new parent friends to meet up for a coffee or set up a play date, you can certainly find time to send a text now and again to the friends you have before you became a parent just to keep in touch, even if meeting up for 30 minutes is so difficult because you're at home and your non-parent friend is working,

OP, there's no hard and fast 'right' answer to this, and no general rules that can be applied to friendships before or after children. There's only you and your individual expectations, and your friend, her expectations, and what she feels she can currently give to a friendship. At the moment, your expectations/standards are not being met. All you can do is communicate this, try to give her opportunities to see you as painlessly as possible, and decide whether you're prepared to hang in there and wait till she emerges out the other side of the baby/small child years or not.

Neither of you is doing anything wrong. There's just a (quite possible temporary) mismatch in expectations/ability to devote time and effort to friendship.

Reading this thread has also made me think of some utterly miserable occasions where I have made a huge effort to see dear old friends without children with my baby/toddler - the vast majority of my friends are abroad, so it's more complicated than nipping down the road - and it's been a fiasco that's left me very upset. In some cases the fiasco was obvious to the friend - bored toddler, crowded restaurant, spectacular kick off that involved me having to abandon my lunch and take him away, despite the fact I hadn't seen this dear friend for five years - in some cases, the friend thought we had a fine time, because sometimes the stress of trying to juggle a small child's needs/boredom/toilet training/fussy food preferences isn't obvious, especially to a non-parent or someone who's kids are adults.

I'm doing it wrong then. How come I can't get out of the house ?

practy people who won't meet at the weekend, totally agree that these are not close friends, don't give them much thought other than if you find their company fun, bear in mind they will probably be free some time around 2018. (By the way though, while I don't need childcare to come out alone at the weekend, I would have struggled to do it if breastfeeding and would have been giving my DH a tiring and draining quid pro quo the weekend after).

But I have to comment on this:
Basically the parent is saying the friendship is no longer a priority for me.

Well look, how much time are you saying? 2-3h, without kids, every month? That's not much to maintain a friendship... but when my kids were small that would have placed you on my priority list ahead of the hairdresser (went once in the first year, after that gave up and now cut my own hair), the dentist (went for checkups with the kids, which sounds lovely and health positive until you consider e.g. I had to have an extremely painful descaling done with them present and had to ask the hygienist to go faster and not let me recover between bouts, as the kids were restive and frightened), and getting a smear test (done the first week my kids were in nursery) - to say nothing of any other friends, things I might want to do for myself such as cinema, theatre. If your friend saw you at all, you were likely very high up her priority list.

No I am not saying 2-3 hours every month. An hour every two to three months would be fine.
And yes, I have been in the position of not having time to go the hairdressers or dentists. I do understand it. But you can't drop people for two to three years, ignore them, then think they will still be there for you when you contact them.

Sorry, practy, I'd got the wrong end of the stick and actually I agree with you. I agree that friends are owed some time and some effort.

People put the effort into maintaining their couple relationships but none into maintaining their friendships. Hubbles, if you've got time for your partner or 'family time', you have some time. You've made a decision about it. And you can ask friends round. Tell them to bring cake. And ignore the state of the sodding house.

I've a 2.5 year old and 5 month old. The daily effort of keeping the ship a float can be exhausting. Just an insight in to my day not to be a pain or for a medal but just to see how a typical day goes.

My day yesterday was:

1:30am toddler up with a cough settled at 2.
4am Baby awake, feed her, settled at 4:45.
5:15am Toddler got up for the day, breakfast started.
6:30am baby woke up, Feed baby. Dress baby for day. Dress toddler for the day. Clothes wash on, one in the dryer, Hoover.
8:30 baby napped for 30 mins after a battle. Play playdoh with toddler.
9am feed baby.
11am Snack for toddler, snack before toddler nap in the hope of him sleeping a little longer. bring him to the potty ( potty training) change his clothes as I wasn't fast enough getting him there.
11:20 feed baby, change nappy.

12:00 Battle toddler to nap, battle baby to nap. Sit down for 30 mins and have breakfast/coffee.
12:30 toddler wakes up way earlier than expected, wakes baby.
12:45 Lunchtime, make lunch. Take clothes out of dryer, new clothes in dryer. Clothes left in a pile. Change toddler clothes again as he peed over the rim all while stopping over amorous toddler hurting baby in background.

1:45 baby nap again. Clean up pasta toddler was playing with from all over kitchen floor. 2:30 Decide to get out of the house and go to Dh in work for a change of scenery. Stop twice on the way over - toddler peeing! Get to DH in work. baby full clothes change due to nappy blow out. Two more visits to the toilet.
4:00 Go home time for tea
4:45 make tea while holding baby as She's fussy and tired.
6:00 Bath, dress them for bed.
6:30 call from DH he'd be late home from work. Shit!
6:45 Read toddler a story pray he'll sleep. Baby now super fussy try to settled her.
8:00 Both asleep. tidy up toys, kitchen and fold washing.
9:00 Toddler wakes from cough, toddler wakes baby from sleep.
9:45 Settle both again. Go back downstairs and continue folding washing and cleaning up toys.
10:00 sit down and watch a TV show to try relax.
11:00 bed
11:45 baby wakes and I feed her

My SIL wanted to call over at 7PM yesterday but I couldn't face it and have two extremely overtired children to deal with.

I'm glad most of my friends have kids and understand that socializing for the moment is not possible most of the time. When my son turned 2 I have more freedom i.e. A window of time he'd be asleep in the evening but new baby coming along fecked that up!

I'd cut your friend some slack, maybe even calling over could be too much on some days. Bad nap and the rest of the day is f&*#ked . I dance with glee when my childless friends announce they are expecting, then the guilt of turning down a boozy lunch on a Saturday afternoon minus kids (because babysitters can't mind a EBF baby that doesn't take bottled ) will end.

I work in a full time busy job and before 2.5 I'd be tired after a day's work plus overtime but nothing compared to how tired I can be with two children.

tbh practy if you were my friend and you were putting seeing me ahead of getting a haircut or going to the dentist I'd tell you to give your head a wobble.