AIBU to find FTM chat incredibly dull?!

[Elleee]

I attended my first baby group with my DD who is now 8 months old. I also have DD aged 4.

I started talking to a few of the other mums there - I made lots of friends the first time round at baby groups and was keen to meet some other mums with babies the same age as DD.

I couldn’t believe how boring the entire room of conversation was! One mum was saying how she’d been carrying around calpol for the past few days and taking her DS’s temperature hourly to check that he wasn’t overheating and didn’t need calpol to bring his temperature down (not entirely sure that’s how calpol works anyway!). Another mum going into detail about how her DD’s bowel habits had changed during the heatwave. Another parent informing everyone that she’d read that wooden toys are so much better than plastic and that she had banned plastic toys from their house (just you wait until your DD gets to age 2 😂). Another saying how she’d been setting alarms to check on DS during the night to check he hadn’t overheated. Other topics of conversation included how BLW is so much superior to purées and how their babies were GREAT eaters (babies were all 6m-14m…).

I actually remember discussing these sort of things back when oldest DD was a baby and I’m mortified at how boring I must have sounded! Is this standard stuff once you’re past your first baby?!

I was going to say you were probably a bit like that with your first, but you beat me to it in your last paragraph!

I think a lot of first time mums can get a bit of tunnel vision around the baby. And I don’t think it’s a new thing. My grandma was told by her GP in the 50s to throw her thermometer away after she showed him her notebook where she’d recorded the temp of her firstborn multiple times a day. If you knew my grandma you’d know how absolutely out of character this was, she was generally a very no nonsense woman not overly sympathetic to day to day illnesses.

It's not boring when you're talking to other new mums who are also interested in these topics.

I'm very pleased that you acknowledged you were the same. It's a right of passage for most FTMs. It's a totally new experience, and a lot of responsibility, and when you're too drained emotionally and physically to have any hobbies or hold a conversation what else is there to talk about?!
Second time around I didn't do baby groups to meet people, as I'd made friends by then and actually, having a baby in common isn't enough to sustain a friendship.

I remember my DH coming home to absolute dismay to find me and my mum friends discussing the merits of Tesco over Huggies over pampers wetwipes! He couldn’t believe how boring we were!!! All babies about 4 months old and we were all first time mums met at a group having a cup of tea at mine! At the time it seemed so important!

It’s totally not unreasonable to find it dull because it is!! But like you say we’ve all been there with the first baby. Like previous poster said I couldn’t tolerate classes 2nd and 3rd time round and just stick to the friends I already have with kids!

Ha, I completely understand this! I remember buying a packet of every single supermarket nappy when I had my first DD so that I could check which suited her the most 😂.

I don’t think it’s ever even crossed my mind as to whether a nappy suits my second - she gets whichever supermarket I’ve been to most recently!

It just shows how PFB we all are without even realising it.

I remember getting so cross with my mum for not understanding how important it was to really think about how many layers DD should have on for the temp. I understand now how insane I must have come across!

Yes, that is how Calpol works. I'm surprised you don't know that, as a superior more-than-one mum!

It's just people getting to know each other, and the current common interest is babies, so they will talk about them 🤷‍♀️

I presumed calpol brings down a temperature that’s caused by illness?! I don’t think taking paracetamol on a hot day makes you feel less hot 😂?! Please do correct me if I’m wrong!

It’s not 😊.

I think you're right. How I got my one to 22 years old I will never know 😆

Hmmm if your baby has a temperature because it’s hot outside, I seriously doubt calpol will do much to help..

Anyway your examples just sound like standard mum chat OP, if you’re not into it then don’t join in 🤷🏻‍♀️

I think you need to be kinder to them and your old self.

It’s such a sudden change for most women, it’s a new job that’s really important to get right, you only really get good at it by doing it or observing others. In big families who live close to each other, you’d learn from other mothers, but for most women you just suddenly have to learn a whole new job very fast when you are sleep deprived and recovering from what for most women will be the most traumatic thing to happen to their body at that point of their lives.

By the 2nd you’ve already learned.

OP I had a surprise 3rd baby when my eldest was already at school and my second about to start school. So I’d been through the baby stage/childcare/weaning/ preschool stages already and I just had zero interest in new mums groups. I went to a baby yoga class with her and I was the only non first time mum and I remember a whole conversation about babies weights and going to the walk in clinic at the health centre to get them weighed regularly and I was wtf but then i remembered on my first maternity leave i had time to go to the health centre. Now I had school and preschool collections and homework and class parties to go to and afterschool activities so baby no3 slotted in around us which was so different to when I had a pfb and my world just revolved around her.

It’ll only get worse, wait a few years and the droning on about schools Will commence

I have now discovered that! I would have been dosing the little one up 🤗

You are not wrong. Internal body temperature due to a fever and feeling hot from a heat wave are not the same thing.

Children play at something until they master a skill and move on, so a playground equipment fascinating until its not anymore-its boring.

I think this type of chat is a bit like that. It is boring once youve moved on, but at the time its not so dull as its new and you are doing the adult equivalent of play.

Plus a baby is the only thing you have in common at thst point in timem.

YANBU. However as you yourself remember all FTMs do it. I guess a lot of it is about reassurance isn't it because your whole world has suddenly been upended?

I have one child so I didn't get to experience the boring chat a second or subsequent times. However I have on occasions overheard a group of new Mums when I'm out and I usually think the conversations are quite sweet as everyone is so incredibly earnest. It also makes me feel incredibly old as my DS is 25!

I get it op, I do. You just have to remember that we were all there once. I mostly have friends I made when my first was a baby and had the same issue second time round, but I did stick around the village baby group and made a few friends in the end with my second. Tbh I saw it as an opportunity to provide a bit of support, tell them they are doing great, it's all going to be ok in the end, they will sleep through the night eventually etc etc. I'm pregnant with my third and I'll be back at baby group, casually mentioning that I'm pretty sure there's no statistical link between baby led weaning and Russell group uni acceptance as soon as anyone looks like they might be about to shame the mum with purée 😂.

I couldn’t bear going to groups like that when my daughter was very young. I tried a couple because I thought I should but found them so incredibly boring. The last thing I wanted to do was see and hear about other people’s babies, and I really didn’t want to be a typical baby bore about my own baby. I felt thst there was an expectation on new mothers to go to groups like this but I didn’t see any benefit of being there and really couldn’t see any point in continuing.

Well being a mum is the one thing they have in common, and if first timers every little thing is a wonder (or a worry). That’s why I never joined any of these groups after my second.

Have you read Matrescence? A bit of pop psychology with some biological backing. It makes a lot of sense of why new mothers have this tunnel vision and “dull” conversations.

Thing is, as a first time parent, it's all new, and therefore more interesting. Once you've done it once, or when it's not your child, it's really not interesting at all!