Can new mums really not ask 'how are you?' anymore?

[Curiousbananas]

Tell me mums. Does having a baby really and truly mean you completely lose the ability to ask a very close friend 'how are you?' and make space to hear the response, even just occasionally? Can you be so very sleep deprived and focused on your child that you simply can't muster any interest in your friends anymore? Are we friends of new mums just expected to have a one sided friendship because you're a mum?

For context...
I have a couple of very close friends who have recently had babies. I've been a dream friend, I've batch cooked, I've had the babies so they can sleep, I've checked in on my friends mental health, I've bought gifts. The works. Babies are approaching 6-7 months old. Every minute of time together since babies were born has been on their terms, at their homes, and I have been so understanding of this as they've been adjusting. BUT I'm starting to get fidgety. I've also been through a personally shitty time in the past 6 months, miscarriage, bereavements etc and I want my friends back. Is it totally unreasonable of me to expect that I should be offered more than a "hope you're doing ok" every now and then? Can my friends truly not cope with the effort of directly asking me 'how are you?' like they used to, and inviting me to respond? Am I unreasonable to start to expect a 'would you like to come over for some dinner and a catchup whilst partner watches the baby so we can spend a minute just the two of us?' Or 'fancy going for a walk? Or a coffee?'

I am pregnant again right now, the last of my close friends to have a baby and I'm wondering, will motherhood make me suddenly, inexplicably, completely unable to show genuine interest in my friends and their lives when it hits me?

Am I being unreasonable to expect that friendships should continue to be semi two sided after the initial adjustment is over? Hit me!

You aren’t completely UR, but having a baby and adjusting to the ever changing demands on you can absolutely take its toll on your ability to have headspace for much else.

Don’t take it too personally, babies develop at a phenomenal rate, you think you’ve cracked one hurdle only to find they wake up one day and have completely changed the game! I found my overall ability to even think properly improved dramatically when the rate of development slowed down after about a year/eighteen months and my dc was more predictable for a period of time. I’ve only had one but I imagine this improves with subsequent children and practice! Plus your perception of time flys by, I would believe anyone who said it was 2019 right now. I caught myself saying this morning that we were still getting over Christmas - it’s almost Easter!!

I would start making noises about looking forward to an adults only evening out/lunch when everybody is available. It’s lovely to be supportive but it’s also worth reminding your friends you miss them. It might take a while to arrange but hang in there and give them a goal to aim for.

Congratulations on your pregnancy too! I hope it’s as stress free as possible for you

No they’re being shit

However, you need to speak up about how you are and stop waiting to be asked.

“How are you”
“Good thanks, had a tough week with MIL being ill”
“Oh it’s so tough isn’t it, sorry to hear that, mine has been rubbish too as my MIL passed away”

Etc etc

OP, you're a great friend and they're absolutely self involved.

There's no excuse for it.

OP, ofc YANBU. You had a miscarriage, you were hurt AND STILL helped your friends and were happy for them. Some people are just happy to take, and never give anything back.

Nope. YANBU in the slightest. Even if it's understandable, because having a newborn and all the trappings of it is haaaard, it's just rather self-centred to forget or fail to have any interest in others. When my eldest was a baby he was very, very poorly, and even during hospital stays for his many, major surgeries I still had the capacity to wish close friends good luck in exams/allow those I loved space to have their own things going on in their lives. There isn't a finite amount of space for giving a shit about yourselves and others, unless you are self-centred to a degree. I hope they come to their senses soon and offer you more support.

I felt like I’d been hit by a train when I became a mum

DD is 3.5 now and having her has just changed me in ways I never thought possible

I still do things without her. I work and I have hobbies. But I have to admit I wasn’t really completely up for a very good friend’s 40th birthday which involved a weekend away recently. I care about my friend a lot, but my heart & head stayed at home with DD

How long is a piece of string? "Easy" baby, lots of support is a completely different scenario from an ill or tricky baby and no support. In the second scenario, just daily functioning is an absolute push

A lot of the time no they can’t, too busy being super absorbed. Honestly after half a decade of doing the heavy lifting in a friendship l was done. Burned out by the lack of interest in me, having to make the effort with logistics and meet ups (classic included me being “selfish” as l wouldn’t get up at 5am to travel 100’s of miles to fit in with a nap time). I went through some tough times and there was little interest or support when my dad died, IVF failed, my marriage broke down etc. I got met with “you have it easier because you don’t have 2 under 2” . No one made her have 2 under 2 and that’s very tactless to say to me when IVF didn’t work

I would make some new friends or find friends who aren’t dicks when they have children

@JudgeJ the inventing motherhood comment tickled me. My ex BIL thought him and his wife were the first people to have 2 children. Confusing as he was the eldest of 6 and his wife was the youngest of 3

Yanbu. The 1st 3 months can be a bit brutal with a first baby , but 6/7 months? I mean, I was tired, but still wanted a life, still wanted to hear my friends news- more actually as my life had shrunk so much!
It’s not you it’s them.
Congrats and good luck with your pregnancy.

You may be being your idea of a ‘dream friend’, OP, but has it occurred to you that you’re over-investing and then getting annoyed when you don’t get the right level of ‘investment’ back? Or that you’re behaving the way you think you would like in their shoes, but which isn’t really what they want? I had just moved countries, so saw very little of my friends when DS was small, but in general, seeing them just felt like an extra demand. In general, if I’m struggling with something, I want my friends to back off and give me space. I don’t want to talk about it because I don’t find that helpful, and constant messages or calls just feel like another demand. The best and only thing I want someone to do for me in those circumstances is to not regard me stepping back as an insult. It isn’t.

I’ve stepped back when friends have had babies. The friendships have come back just as strongly once the small baby stage was past, and they’d adjusted to being back at work.

YANBU. DS was given a life shortening diagnosis at birth and spent months in hospital. He’s doing really well now but I still managed to ask about my friends’ house renovation projects, relationship difficulties, fertility treatments, miscarriages, holidays, promotions etc. I wanted to know about these things and talk about them and support my friends and not just talk about me all the time.

Have you asked them? It sounds like you've been great, and as you say you love the babies, enjoy spending time with them etc, maybe your friends just don't realise you want to spend time with them alone? I'm not sure that it would have occurred to me when mine were 6 months old to leave them at home when seeing friends who appeared to love seeing the baby?

@JudgeJ thank you xTo answer your Q, I cooked because both had traumatic births, hospital stays etc and I thought it would be one less thing for them to think about. I did it instead of buying a proper gift/it was my gift to them. I cooked one big lasagne when babies were born which was very very appreciated, and for the first month, whenever I visited I took a home cooked meal from my own freezer batch (chicken stew/chilli etc). I knew mum wasn't finding time to make home cooked meals and was overwhelmed, as she usually would have cooked from scratch every night for her and her husband and they were living off ding dinners, so I thought it would be a treat for the first month or so and I was happy to share. Cooking is just something I always do for new parents as I enjoy cooking. I've stopped now mostly, but do occasionally share a couple of portions if I make too much to fit in my freezer!

I had my first baby last May and it's only now where I've started to find energy to even message my friends saying stuff like 'how have you been/what's new etc.' I had a traumatic birth with three surgeries but even if I didn't, I still don't think I would have had the energy to message my friends and check up on them as normal.

Since have my baby, I've been the same. I rarely see my friends and when I do it's on my terms, in my house etc. I never try and go out for a coffee or whatever because it's just not a priority to me. As I've said, it's only now where my DC is nearly 1 that I've finally found a balance where I can still be social and be a mum. It is hard though and I can totally understand you still expect your friends to be there for you how they used to be but sometimes it's just not possible for a good little while. Sorry to hear about your loses and congratulations with the pregnancy🙌

@Erinyes - thank you. I will give your thoughts some serious consideration x

I can’t believe people are defending your friends. The OP is only asking for a ‘how are you?’. I had a fucking awful time when mine were tiny & even I managed to ask that when I saw friends, especially if I knew they had miscarried or were bereaved.

I'd have loved a lasagne when I had a little baby. You sound like a really good friend OP. I wasn't a great friend looking back but I am making up for it now. I made it to a wedding at 10 weeks on my own with the baby which was bloody hard work. But then I found having my first baby horribly overwhelming due to mastitis and feeding issues. I found my second a breeze and went on holiday abroad at 4 weeks. All babies are different. Even then, I didn't get much spare time to think about anything that wasn't happening right at that moment. It's a fairly relentless job! Congratulations on your pregnancy

@babyhaha

I had my first baby last May and it's only now where I've started to find energy to even message my friends saying stuff like 'how have you been/what's new etc.' I had a traumatic birth with three surgeries but even if I didn't, I still don't think I would have had the energy to message my friends and check up on them as normal.

Since have my baby, I've been the same. I rarely see my friends and when I do it's on my terms, in my house etc. I never try and go out for a coffee or whatever because it's just not a priority to me. As I've said, it's only now where my DC is nearly 1 that I've finally found a balance where I can still be social and be a mum. It is hard though and I can totally understand you still expect your friends to be there for you how they used to be but sometimes it's just not possible for a good little while. Sorry to hear about your loses and congratulations with the pregnancy🙌

Wow always on your terms..not a priority- I wouldn't worry i doubt you'll have many friends left soon!

I think you sound like a good friend, and it isn't a lot to ask for a little support back.
I think babies change us, at least in terms of relationship priorities. I was the last of my siblings to have a baby and did the babysitting, helping out, checking up, fetching nappies, buying expensive gifts etc. When I had my dc none of it was reciprocated. It stung a bit at the time, but now I know it was because I was the available one and the only one of us in the position to be able to help. That help or support never filters back down to the last of the group to have babies.

[quote Curiousbananas]@Erinyes - thank you. I will give your thoughts some serious consideration x[/quote]
They’re intended in a spirit of genuine helpfulness, @Curiousbananas — obviously, though, you know your own friends best. I did find the first year or so of my son’s life as a bit of a battle — I found maternity leave miserable, and there were a lot of other things going on, including a disastrous move, DH being made redundant out of the blue and having to take a job that involved a lot of travel — and I just had nothing over for anything else. I literally saw the whole world as though through the wrong end of a telescope, and blurry. Yes

in order to visit a new mother you must arrive bearing gifts, clean her house, cook her a meal, not even LOOK at the baby and then depart having talked only about her' thing

😂 I slightly agree but I think it's helpful to do similar to the OP and come round with a meal or something that takes the pressure off of them. Especially if they're hardly finding the time to eat. Some people want to visit all day and sit around cooing over the baby when you haven't even found the time to shower and eat yet. It does get a bit draining so I think the OP has been thoughtful in her approach

YANBU.
Being a new parent shouldn't give anyone carte blanche to turn into a self-absorbed arse.

Congratulations on your pregnancy. I wish you all the best.