To wonder why my wife can't make baby friends?

[SunshineDad2021]

I love my wife to pieces, and so do all my friends and family. She has a handful of close friends who she spends time with, but for some reason she hasn't been able to make any "baby friends", despite us doing NCT, baby classes and swimming.

We got a pretty rubbish group for NCT, which also happened to be virtual. Nobody wanted to meet up after, other than 2 girls, who then went on to be friends (they were acquaintances already...). The other groups and classes my wife tells me a lot of women go who know each other already OR they get up and leave and don't want to socialise.

She feels pretty shit about it sometimes. Literally nobody ever has a problem with her so why is it so hard for her to make mum friends to go to play dates, soft play etc with?

Not sure if it's the way she looks, if she's too introverted, or if she opens up too much.... or just that she's had shit luck at being in groups where people already know each other and don't want any more friends. Surely it's not just her that feels lonely?!

I go to a lot of classes etc and I haven’t made any mum friends. I do have mum friends but they were already my friends before being mums. Even if I have a polite conversation with someone at a class, it doesn’t ever lead to anything more than that and I feel like it would be overly forward of me to suggest meeting up another day. I’m an introvert though!

As others have said, get her to try an app like peanut, 'online dating' for mum friends. One-on-one and being able to filter for compatability may help a lot.

I tried, I so wanted that Mum support group - the friends and support that come with that friendship... I did baby groups, play groups, toddler groups, story time sessions, music secssions, swimming clubs, joined PTA at school etc and only made one friend in that whole time.. I gave up trying to make Mum friends - just didnt work for me... when DC1 was 7 we had DC2 - I tried again... didn't work again - but then when DC2 was 6/7ish some new PTA parents joined and then I was invited into a book group with some of them ... their DCs were a year below my DC2 but they had other local friends who were the same age and all of a sudden I was in that Mum group... we have camped away, been on holiday, festivals, drunken nights, baby sat and generally supported each other and become great friends - even had one of their DCs stay for 8 weeks while Mum was in hospital. I never thought it would happen was so upset that I never made those NCT friends, the nursery friends and the school gate friends, but it happened when I found the right group

Urgh I sympathise with your wife. Basically as soon as you find anyone you vaguely like you have to immediately leap with a cheerful 'I should get your number, it would be lovely to go for coffee/a walk/ check out the swimming class together.' Work on the assumption other people are crap at organising/shy rather than anything wrong with you and you (she) will get far. Recommend going to the same activity a few weeks in a row so people get familiar with you. Sometimes there is the exhaustion at baby groups of constant new faces and people don't make an effort for that reason.

I expect most people already have mum friends in that their friends are already parents and maybe that's why she's finding it difficult? Maybe it comes across that's she's trying too hard and that can make people back off?

[quote SunshineDad2021]@SpacePotato because she is a new Mum and wants friends....[/quote]
The problem is that kind of compromise with ‘baby friends’. Having kids a similar age isn’t enough in common usually to make lifelong friendships over.

I never did forced groups etc, my mum friends came from chatting at school gates and finding things In common away from our children.

Not wanting to be rude but why exactly are you asking this question on your wife's behalf? Maybe it would be better if she asked the questions herself and then people could engage directly with her.

It's hard to say why your wife is struggling. Why isn't she asking about this?

I have a five month old and go to a few different groups a week. The only thing where it seemed like people already knew each other was baby cinema.

I've met people at other classes. One is an activity where I joined and made friends with someone who had been going w while. We just clocked at the first session we met. We had both arrived early and got talking that way.

There is also a stay and play type group where parents with babies tend to sit in the same area and chat. One of them asked for my number last week.

It's not my experience that they all already know each other.

There’s something about your post that feels off, like an underlying tone of blame towards your wife. Why on earth would it have anything to do with how she looks?

It's sad if your wife hasn't made any baby friends, if this is her wish. To me,it would be a big no no, to want to do this.. I dont like groups of people, and meets ups and all the rest, especially Mother and baby groups.

But I guess you have to try and mingle with people as much as possible, if you really need to be in group things.

Found baby groups very clicky and often they were on 2nd babies so already knew each other. Met one nice girl 2 years ago buying some bottle teats and we’ve continued to meet and now I’ve me her friends from toddler group- really nice people. Toddler groups so much better, made two really nice friends and we go out.

I definitely recommend Peanut, met a couple of people on there where it's progressed into coffee - one of which I'm now quite friendly with.

Where are you OP? I'm in Bucks and happy to have more mum friends

@Keyboardkaterina

There’s something about your post that feels off, like an underlying tone of blame towards your wife. Why on earth would it have anything to do with how she looks?

I agree there is something off and blamey about the post. Op doesn't sound very sunshiny but it's also possible she is feeling down and he made this for her to help.

Giving OP the benefit of doubt, I
have had problems making mum friends despite 3 years of efforts. I did wonder if it had anything to do with how I looked: black (only black in very very white groups. Only one other black woman who lived far and we met twice, in all the groups I attended in 3 years) and also not the most glamorous by any stretch of imagination in groups that had many glammed big SUV mums. I have even tried the Peanut app but haven't found links in my area. Am now slowly making friends (two so far, yey!). In part because of a wonderful French mum I met on nextdoor and because my eldest is in preschool.

@SunshineDad2021 it's hard, and it's not your wife's fault. I have come to realise sometimes it's just hard. Or you find a cohort that's just busy with trying to survive, like all of us. My hectic self employed schedule doesn't help either.

Getting thrown together with other people who all have one thing in common is always going to be very hit or miss in terms of finding really good friends and COVID has made it harder. As Gandalf456 said - it's best to see other mums in this situation as colleagues who you should try and skate along with while you have children who might get something out of the association, and may be one or two will become something more but you shouldn't expect that from them.

While playgroups and baby groups were fine and helped pass the time, I didn't make any actual friends at any of them. It wasn't until mine started school that I started to bond with any other mums, and even that took years. More than a decade on and I've only stayed in touch with one other parent after kids were no longer in the same class.

Your wife should look to the friends and family she does have to help fill in the loneliness, and maybe consider going back to work sooner if she doesn't enjoy being a sahm. You (and she) need to make sure she has the time to keep up with old friends and gets some adult company in the evenings (assuming she's currently a sahm and you're working full time). The loneliness can be pretty awful and will have a negative impact on all sorts of areas of your whole family's life if it gets too bad for too long.

I feel for your OP, it's hard. I didn't enjoy my NCT group either and four years on barely see them. Covid must make it all much more difficult. I've had a second mat leave during the pandemic and haven't managed to meet anyone new at all.

I agree with other comments. You've got to be a bit bold. If you chat to someone at a group and they seem nice just literally ask for their number and then text to make arrangements. It can feel a bit awkward but it's the way to go.

No big deal. Just wait until older toddler years when they make friends and you are forced to be friends with the other parents like it or not. It’s not as though you can drop and run at play dates. Sometimes you get lucky and are forced into this with someone you genuinely like and go on to become friends with, otherwise it’s friendships you endure for the life of your child’s friendships. Ditto for starting school.

So in short, all is not lost, there will be many chances moving forward.

The snark here is just so unneccessarily cunty. It is clear that OP is at work all day and his wife is either SAHM or on mat leave.
She is feeling crap as she wants to make friends to do baby things together with. She has obviously told her husband and he is on the biggest parenting site in the UK asking for advice for his wife who is a new mum and people arr being cunts. How do people get like this?
OP as before mentioned try peanut app.

Oh ignore those asking why your wife would want to make mum friends. Lots of women DO want to make mum friends and it doesn't make them needy or a lesser person!!

I didn't make 'mum' friends until I put my DS into daycare 1 day a week when pregnant with my second. Them through nursery and getting involved in the committee.

I sympathise as I did NCT and had no luck. Others partnered off and made friends but I just wasn’t seen as part of it. I still wonder why sometimes. I tried really hard. Asking for coffees and walks but there was one woman in the group who would only do one on one get togethers and she picked and chose and split everyone. She was very blatant and proactive about it and it felt very deliberate and negative if you weren’t one of her chosen walking buddies that day. I see other big nct groups who are all still friends and it does sting a bit. Has she tried netmums? There are often local people wanting to make friends. I made a good mum friend on there.

How can anyone here answer this question? We have never meet your wife.

Maybe she lacks confidence as a result of having a husband/wife who thinks she may not make friends because of the way she looks and feels it necessary to analyse her failure to make friends on a forum. Just a wild guess.

I never forged baby group friendships - I already had a tight knit group of actual friends (albeit with older kids) and found the competitiveness of baby groups really tedious. Your wife has friends, I really wouldn’t worry about it.
When mine got to school age I formed a lovely group of mum friends, much more relevant too as these are the people who’s kids are actually going through school together.

@BurnedToast

How can anyone here answer this question? We have never meet your wife.

Maybe she lacks confidence as a result of having a husband/wife who thinks she may not make friends because of the way she looks and feels it necessary to analyse her failure to make friends on a forum. Just a wild guess.

Or maybe she finda it hard because some women are utter cunts.

Oh yes of course, that old sexist term. What a delight you must be @znaika

OP: my wife is lonely and wants to meet new mum friends and I want to help her
Half of replies: that wasn’t MY experience and I refuse to countenance it could be hers.

OP, I am like your wife. I live abroad and it’s a bit more complicated but what I’d give to make some mum friends. I’m very lonely and often only speak to my children all day, if my husband is working away. The first time I felt like this I literally had to PUT myself out there. I joined a local fb group and basically said ‘I’m lonely does anyone want to meet for coffee?’ I felt so embarrassed but people replied positively. She will not be the only person who feels like this. It is SO hard to be brave when it seems like everyone else is already in a group. I wish her luck. It’s so hard. And mum guilt makes everything feel so heavy.

I was exceptionally lucky with my NCT group. Of the 7 couples that attended, only one couple made it clear they didn’t want to meet up again. Had the other couples all been standoffish, life would have been very different. Covid most certainly won’t have helped as you never actually met as a group to have made proper contacts.

Out of the group, I am only in contact with one and we get on very well. Don’t see one another much now but the kids are 13! She’s the sort of person you’d call on if you’d accidentally killed someone and expect her to arrive with a car, a shovel and a plan. We used to see one another a lot and when we took the babies out, we were sometimes told how lucky we sisters were to have babies so close together lol. We were actually originally in a group of 3 but this mum unfortunately moved away when the kids were about 3. But before that, the 3 of us, all sahms hung out a lot together. It was really fab for the kids as none of us were local (I’m close to a university city and they never left) so we doubled up as ‘aunties’, support and occasional childcare.

It doesn’t sound as if your dw has had as much luck. Had I not met people I gelled with, I would have taken dd to post natal courses and hoped to meet like minded people. You’ve had plenty of advice on this front. She just needs to find her people. I think it’s actually rare to have what I had. I didn’t realise it at the time. Since then, I’ve made and lost mum friends because we were only ‘friends’ because of the kids rather than because of us. I’m very unwell. Perhaps it would have been different had I been able to live a normal life and go out / meet up more.

I’ve since befriended a couple of women, who not only have kids the same age but also have dogs. Their kids meet as they’re the same sex and age. But we meet to walk the dogs every week and celebrate each other’s birthdays. I know they meet separately. It does hurt a bit. But they’re more alike and each have several kids, whereas I have none. And they are in good health. One of them really doesn’t get how ill I am, the other does. You just have to roll with the punches.