To mute parenting groups?

[NC90210]

I have two young DC and I’m in two WhatsApp groups that go off non stop. One is a group I met at a baby class and the other an NCT one. The groups are constantly full of messages comparing children, sending tonnes of pictures, mentioning every small thing that they do and a lot of comparing who has it the toughest. Eg my son didn’t sleep much, my daughter has a cold and those who are back to work complaining. And hidden bragging.

As a person, I’m quite enjoying mat leave not hanging out with these people (we rarely meet, often the group chats are people trying to find dates and actually haven’t met in months) and realised I quite enjoy just not reading them and having them clog up my phone. But I feel a lot of pressure to have “mum friends” so have been replying when I can. But I figure I’ll naturally make friends more when my kids are at school and nursery and I have many friends who just happen not to be mums. There’s a lot of pressure!

Is that bad? And what’s a tactful way of ignoring them? We live locally so I don’t want to totally ignore, but it moves at approx 60-70msgs a day!

If not helpful why are u in them? Just exit the groups.

I feel bad as no one else has left them yet and feel it’ll be rude!

No one will care. Just ditch them.

I'd totally mute but I didn't really want mum friends at all so I'd have no qualms. I don't have enough time to see my existing friends!

Yes exactly this!!

I think it would be a shame to ‘ditch them’ to be honest - presumably you did NCT with a mind to meeting other mums / couples with children born at the same time as yours. Equally though, I don’t think you should feel under pressure to reply. I’m in no less than five different groups for parents (a preschool one, one from where I did a course with DD and no one has posted for months, a village mummy one, my original NCT group from four years ago and some other random one) and there’s no pressure to reply.

Our village one is mostly people trying to sell old baby items, it’s fine to just not reply!

I did initially but the group has become really draining and competitive. It was useful at the start but now it’s just very intense!

I would mute them, and if you run into any of them just say "Oh, I can't keep up with all the messages but it's lovely to catch up when I can".

Mute and move on, no biggie

Do you want to see these people in person? Can they become part of your community? If not then I see no problem just leaving. If they might, and especially if you don’t have a good support network such as family maybe keep in touch. You or they may need a favour or just friendship if something bad happens.

I just mute them and scroll once a day to make sure I haven't missed anything important. I tend to 'react' to messages that are useful and are not 2 people having a chat on a group of 50 👀

If the groups not useful at all though, feel free to bow out. I only have 1 DS and am in 7 (?!?!) relevant parenting chats, so any time I can ditch them I put a nice goodbye message in there and then remove myself ASAP!

This is great! I may be dim but if I mute it will I still see it when i open my WhatsApp inbox?

SO many 1 on 1 chats in the group. Mainly about whose son sleeps the worst.

Not particularly. If anything really bad happened I have many friends and family members who can help.

But who cares if it's rude? You don't enjoy it, you don't want to be friends with them. How is this rude to remove yourself from situations you don't want to be in?
Going forward, I recommend doing what I do. If someone offers to add me to a Whatsapp group I tell them that I don't generally participate in them as I find it a bit much. I left plenty of groups and I have a work one and a family one on mute. Nobody so far chased me down the village with pitchforks or plastered my face on social media telling everyone how rude I am.

I mute everything (except first degree relatives) so I can check things when I get time

Yanbu. You will develop mum friends over the years when you meet the right ones

Archive it so it won't be popping up the whole time. If there are one or two people from the group(s) that you get on better with then just message them from time to time if you don't want to keep up with the whole group.

I left the NCT one incredibly quickly. Unless you breastfed, co-slept and constantly talked about the lack of sleep due to ‘boobing’, they weren’t interested.

How did you leave? Did you just leave or write a msg?