Friend had a baby & friendship has changed

[BVIre]

Hi! So I am currently pregnant with my first baby but have no other kids so don’t know if I am being unreasonable or not & would genuinely appreciate advice!

My really good friend that I lived with all through university & love to pieces- we were each others bridesmaids and everything! She had a baby at the start of August, the baby was a bit of a surprise but her & her husband were super excited and I was delighted for them. Since we left uni, unfortunately we live quite far away from each other (approx. 2 hour drive).

We normally see each-other once a month and we meet in a place that is half way for both of us & it has worked really well our whole friendship. Throughout her pregnancy I offered to come closer to her because she was quite unwell but she said she didn’t mind & made comments along the lines of ‘sure once the baby is here you’ll be coming to me all the time’- which I didn’t really think much about.

Fast forward and she has her lovely wee baby and she is doing so well but the friendship has massively changed. I have only been down to see her once since she had the baby and when I arranged to come down and see her I only had an hour with her before she had arranged other plans to go to her mums for dinner which was fine. So it’s a 2 hour drive to her house, and she’s confused why I can’t come and see her more often. My job doesn’t finish to 5:30pm and with traffic I wouldn’t be able to get to her until 8ish and then have to bare in mind that I am a 2 hour drive away from home so I am kind of reliant on weekends which are incredibly busy for me.

I’d love to see her more but she’s made no offer to meet me even 1/2 hour closer and the baby is now 3 months at this point. I also want to tell her that I don’t mind if the baby doesn’t come if that’s what’s keeping her but I don’t think her husband is at home all that much to give her a night off, I also don’t want to offend her but telling her it’s her I want to see & not the baby.

The other point is I am also now 16 weeks pregnant & she has no idea because she’s the type of person to get offended if I text her that news as she would expect to be told in person. I am now not seeing her to next week and I know she’s going to be so upset that I’ve waited so long to tell her (she told me at 7 weeks) but I’ve always been the more private of the 2 of us and I also feel stuck because I would text her the news but she has made comments before that she would be annoyed if I text her news like that so I feel stuck between a rock and a hard place.

We are also not big texters and I feel like I have been making a huge effort to check in via text with her but I get quite long paragraphs from her back with about 600 pictures of the baby and they feel more like a Facebook post life update than a conversation with a friend and she doesn’t really ask me how I am back.

Just wondering if I am being unreasonable to be upset at how much her becoming a mum has changed our friendship already or if anyone has advice?

The first 3 months of having a baby, are the hardest. So I think you're being a little harsh. She can't leave her baby yet, if she's breast feeding. I'd give her a year to get back to normal, but her life is still going to revolve around her child. I thinks that's so jicenif you to drive 2 hrs to hers for a short visit. I wouldn't have done that. Congrats on your pregnancy. I'd call her up and tell her you're pregnant, and not feeling up to driving over for a while.

I don't think this is a "you'll understand when you have a baby" situation. Sure, she can't necessarily pack the baby in the car and drive halfway. But she surely can't expect op to drive to her frequently and when she does make alternative plans. And then complain that she doesn't visit often enough.

Hmm tricky one. I think there is unreasonableness from both sides to me. You talk about being busy at the weekend but l am sure she is as well. You both need to make effort but l can see why you don’t want to do a 4 hour round trip after work!

Her baby is quite young so right at this moment in time an hours drive might be a bit much. But it’s not that long in the scheme of things. I took 2 month old twins for on a 45 minute drive. I had a friend who has children and expected me to revolve things around her. She was very precious and expected to me to do lots of running around for what convenient for her. E.g. she thought l was selfish as l wouldn’t get up at 5am to drive halfway up the country as that time “would have fitted in well with nap time”. This continued for years until l had enough of it and we parted company. In the end her children weren’t small either -7 and 5 but she wouldn’t make much effort with our friendship and hadn’t for so long. She would pull out of events booked over a year ago “because of the children” but wouldn’t pay for her ticket, invited to a big birthday event months in advance but never RSVP’d so l had to work out for myself she wasn’t coming and any social occasions had to be virtually in sight distance of her house etc. She would go on about me changing my mind when l had children and see it differently but l don’t. I now have young twins but l continue to think she was precious and lazy! There were too many occasions when she was a shit friend and made no effort but expected lots from me

At three months her baby is still very little (too little to be left for any length of time if she’s breastfeeding, and even is she isn’t she likely wouldn’t feel comfortable being away from her). I couldn’t have contemplated travelling a couple of hours to see a friend at that time in my son’s life.

She would be very unreasonable to be annoyed at you for not having told her you are pregnant yet - it’s absolutely your decision as to when you tell people.

I totally understand why you can’t commit to regularly travelling all the way to her when she lives so far away. It might be that in this season of your lives while you have very young children you have to accept seeing each other less often.

I had a pretty easy baby in that he was never sick or reflux-y, took to breastfeeding immediately and was generally a happy camper. I was still exhausted at the 3 month mark though. A lot of babies are becoming more aware of the world at that age, fighting naps and getting into overtired cycles. I also wouldn't have dreamt of leaving him for hours to go visit a friend alone so I'd avoid even suggesting that if I were you!

It's a bit crap that she made other plans with her mum an hour after you drove all the way down to see her, she was being really inconsiderate there. If I were you I'd give her a phone call to tell her your news rather than a text message and tell her you've been quite sick and tired with the pregnancy so you haven't been able to visit.

Tbh OP, once you have your baby the friendship will probably change further, I found mum friendships easier when I had a newborn but now they are toddlers everyone works around nap times etc and it’s hard to find times where we are both free.

It’s one of the hardest things as a mum to maintain friendships, just the headspace needed for it is hard work.

"We're not big phone call people ..."

Come on, OP. You have to be adaptable to keep up with a long-term friendship. Things can't always work the same as they have in the past.

@Didimum thanks for this but we’re not both of us have mutually agreed that in the past. I spend most of my day on the phone and personally that’s where we have landed as friends on that matter.

My friend is also not a big phone call person either, couldn’t even ring the local takeaway when we lived together at university.

We have tried twice since she had the baby and both times she came of the call to text and apologise because she talked constantly and it wasn’t very conversational which is why she doesn’t like calls.

Then if your friendship isn't adaptable to different communication methods and you live 2hrs apart ,then I'm not sure how you expect it to survive big life changes that mean travelling is off the cards or much more difficult. Sorry.

@Didimum maybe you’re right cheers 👍👍

I have a 3m baby and she is sleeping very well overnight but still not what I would call an easy baby. Crying/screaming when put down during day, not much napping in the day, very difficult to settle, needs to be in sling a lot, discomfort before filling nappy etc. The days can be relentless still at this stage. I’ve only stayed in local area so far and my friends and family have insisted on visiting me at my home. Even one who lives 2-3 hours away. I would not be doing that trip at this stage and anyone who suggests I travel to theirs eg 1.5 hours on the train, I’ve declined and said when the baby is older.

I definitely didn’t know how full on it is until baby was here, so I would have thought similar to you. Before baby arrived, I thought I would be able to take baby to cafes/casual restaurants and even go away for trips but we’re not there yet. Just washing my hair feels like an achievement 😂. I think it depends on the baby and temperament too. You might not have the full picture.

however she shouldn’t have made alternate plans when you came all the way to visit her. Also I still try ensure I ask my friends how they are doing and keep up with what’s going
on in their lives, and try not to bombard with too many photos as appreciate it’s not majorly interesting for everyone!

Lots of people are telling you having a baby is hard work and it’s difficult to see beyond the little bubble you’re in. Yet you keep post “but, but, but”.

It sounds like you want us all to agree your friend is nasty and selfish and you’ve been hard done by that she can’t be as flexible as she used to be.

I didn’t want to say this, but please do
come back and update us once you’ve had your child and you understand how difficult it is. Yes, new mums do become selfish in how the baby becomes the only priority in their life, but it’s one of the few times where being selfish is justifiable.

When my daughter was three months old every car journey was hell. She screamed and screamed and screamed.

No way on earth would I have voluntarily driven any further than I needed to.

Your friend is no longer making decisions just for herself, you need to remember that.

@AgaMM just trying to provide a bit of context into why I have certain feelings/other factors in the friendship- I’ll absolutely do an update post once my own little one is here.

Ah op, I don't mean this in a bad way because I actually really loved the early months with ds, but you will understand this all when your wee one comes along! It's a big change in your life and suddenly everything revolves around this wee person who is utterly unpredictable! I felt very lucky that I loved the early months as a lot of people don't. It took me about 6 weeks to feel physically recovered but the lack of sleep and the hormone fog lasted much longer. I remember the first 5 months as a lovely blur!

Obviously every mum is different and will experience it differently, but for me I was in a real fog of hormones until baby was about 9 months and it made me very forgetful and affected my executive decision making and honestly my social skills went to shit! And i work in a really social role and am normally really good socially! I used to come away from conversations all the time kicking myself that I forgot to ask this or say that, that normally I'd do without thinking about it. So in regards her messages , she's doing her best to update you with what's going on with her right now. And the only thing going on with her is the baby. And she's not probably got the brain power right now to think beyond that. It can feel very all consuming! So just volunteer information the way she is and she'll appreciate that.

Also in terms of going out with baby, 3 months isn't really that old, I had ppa and don't get me wrong, I could manage it, but the intrusive thoughts etc really put me off going out as much as I could have been especially in the early months. It's not so bad now ds is 11 mths but I still get anxious about ridiculous things if we're meant to be going somewhere new. Think along the lines of going to the museum, but what if there's a terrorist attack on the museum that day. (As ridiculous as that sounds) This might not be the case for her, but a lot of ppa isn't talked about and it's hard to articulate because you do know it sounds a bit crazy (even though it's very common and normal). So my point is only that you don't know the full extent of how she's really feeling about doing that 30min drive.

I had friends with babies before me who did the same and honestly I felt the exact same as you and I was frustrated as well until I had ds and then I was like - oh i get this now!

The important thing to remember is that it doesn't last forever. The older baby gets the easier they are to get out with, the more of a routine they fall into, the more you start feeling back to normal mentally, the easier it is to leave baby for a few hours and naturally your friendships benefit from that return to a bit of structure. So my advice is stick it out with her, I'm really glad I stuck it out with my friends because now they're sticking it out with me and I'm really glad of them for it. I always remember my first friend to have a baby and feeling exactly like you do, and then her telling me when I had ds that she really appreciated me because all her other friends just fell away because they didn't get it and it was very lonely for her.

I would suggest that you try to find other ways to do things. I used to facetime one of my friends with a glass of wine after ds went down to sleep (it took 4 mths before he'd sleep before midnight due to colic). But it did give us a chance to catch up kind of face to face and that was really nice. We also text a lot more than we used to because it's easier to text during a contact nap when you need to be quiet.

Please don't let any of this put you off either, I love being a mum and he's totally worth all the hard bits. If I could give you one other bit of advice, just make sure you agree not to compare parenting experiences with each other too much. There might be bits of the experience she finds easy that you find tough and vice versa and it can be difficult to move past that. For example one of my friends got the birth experience I really wanted, with another I was able to bf and she had an incredibly hard time with it and really grieved that part of her journey and I definitely judged myself for not finding it as easy as other friends to just get up and out for the day. It's so individual so you need to be gentle with yourself and each other.

As others have said, you will have a much clearer understanding of this once you're a few months into parenting your own baby. You're not being unreasonable as such cos you can't really relate yet, but similarly your pal isn't being unreasonable either as she's just trying to muddle through the chaotic first year of having her baby.
I understand you don't want to say over text but what about a FaceTime? Would that work? Then you're as 'in person' as you can be and you're both warm and cosy in your houses!
Good luck and congratulations on your pregnancy!

You will understand once you have your own baby how life changes in the first few months. Can you not arrange to go visit her on a saturday/sunday early for a few hours have lunch etc. Think you need to be more understanding of her life change and her baby only 3months old.

This, great advice.

I'm in a similar position to you OP with two of my friends, and also pregnant.

Having seen LOTS of friends go through pregnancy and having tiny babies, there are big differences. So everyone on here going "you'll understand when you have one" etc - maybe, but no everyone reacts to having them the same as they are different people and of course the babies are different people too.

One of my friends has definitely gone into this phase, BUT importantly when I just butt into the conversation offering my own news (about myself or someone else) she really is interested and wants to hear it. (Even though she hasn't thought to ask for ages either.) So do give that a try. She hasn't been able to travel to me or meet in the middle which I completely understand, but she's also keen for me to come and stay and wouldn't do something knobbish like your friend did (or if she did - I'd point out that it's not really worth the journey to come for just an hour and she would do things differently next time). In other words, she might be entirely taken up with the baby but she still makes enough effort to show that she cares.

Another one though sounds like your friend - always been quite demanding and expecting others very much to fit round her. Recently I've decided I'm not sure the friendship is sustainable because she still expects this even now her baby is much older (at school!), she doesn't even offer to meet anywhere other than her house (or even say anything normally polite like "I'm sorry it's a pain but do you mind coming to mine again? I need to be at home for XYZ reason", just expects it and never says thanks either). As a result she doesn't know my news either and quite frankly I'm not sure when she's going to find out as I can no longer do the big journeys to hers and she never ever asks anything about me, and I'm fed up with her lack of interest if I tell her anything.

So - similar initial behaviour but one feels like there's a long term friendship there and the other, sadly I'm not sure.

@WitcheryDivine thanks so much I think that’s so helpful! I think it is good to remember that yes everyone reacts differently to becoming a mum, thank you so much it’ll be interesting to see how this friendship turns out!

might try your tip of just sharing updates from my side as well even without being asked just to see if that helps texts feel more conversational!

All babies (and all mothers) are different.
DS (now 5) was such hard work as a tiny baby, he had colic, reflux, would scream in the car, scream when he was put down, some days I couldn't even get dressed. It was so stressful I got crippling PND that lasted a year. Meeting up with people was so overwhelming and anxiety inducing for me.
DD (now 2) complete opposite, really relaxed, chilled, happy little baby and I could have happily been out and about meeting friends every day if it wasn't for Covid.

They are also my complete and utter priority in life and sorry but everyone else comes ways down the pecking order for me. I've friends who've moved on and I don't get invited to as much anymore but I don't blame them and hope they understand. (I do go out and see friends etc but no longer do long girls trips abroad).

Do it! I think honestly so many new parents are just exhausted and forget the social niceties for a while, which is understandable. Doesn't mean they aren't interested in you or want to be left out of knowing what's going on (in every case).

I had no social niceties when I was sleep deprived with a new baby.

Cut her some slack now and she'll do the same for you if the time comes when you are focused on your baby to the detriment to everything else.

This. Just calm down, both of you, with the drama, expectations and high stakes visiting and telling news stuff. Use the phone. That’s what it was for, originally!

If the friendship is important, it can wait a year or two until you both get out of the trenches of early parenthood.

This is where FaceTime etc totally come into their own. Please call her on it and tell her your news- she will then understand. Travelling with a little one is a pain in the butt for many . Babies change things but you can keep the connection by using FaceTime or WhatsApp- show enthusiasm for the baby and understand at the moment that the baby dominates her agenda!!