Okay, opinions: I want to move out of London a bit, to somewhere a bit more spacious...

[TheHerdNerd]

but I'm a bit worried that DW won't find other mums all that easily! We know some new parents here already, so we'd have to meet new ones.

Has anybody done this? Results/caveats/tips?

i moved here (crawley) from london 2 years ago. mine was a forced move so had very little choice over area.

my two were 18months and 5 when i came here. DS has SN which was another block to meeting people as schoolgate mums didn't want to know me.

BUT i have found a group of mums whose children are slightly older and they have become probably the best group of friends i have ever known.

its not impossible.

I agree with a lot of what you say, NFK, But I think another thing is how much room in your life you have for new friends. All my "real" friends are long-standing, from school or university or my first job. Because I have stayed in touch with them and am very close and fond of them I am, on teh whole, happy with keeping my parenting friends as allies,(I like that description) people to chat to, sometimes have coffee with, swap dropping off at swimming lessons with, but they're still not in the same league as my "real" friends. If, on the other hand, I had lost touch and needed new friends I would have, and could have made more effort - extended more invitations and accepted more and would, I think, made a few "proper" friends

I see you are similar in thought to me, NFK!

My university friends are spread so far and wide around the country that I can't see many of them anyway, even if I moved to lived near one or two of them. Mind you they are really good friends who I have had for more than 20 years so they can't be replaced.

I can't imagine going to a gym let alone speaking to somebody there but I assume that some people must do it occasionally.

I was really just making the point that you don't have to rely on your children to make friends.

I also think that you can meet people in the early years of school. I have made a couple of proper friends in the last 3 years and I know my mum was in touch with one lady she met which I first started school until the lady died.

There all sorts of friendships, some are for life and some are just a stage of your life. One of my best university friends has no children so although we still get on really well there is a whole area of our lives where we can't really share and that is where you make new friends to fill the gaps, so to speak.

I think university friends are in a different league as well as most of the time you meet them when you have time to spend on developing a relationship and they can be the most important people in your life.

Any friends you make after children have to come second to your family and you can't spend the time on them but that is fine as they have their families too.

UD, I disagree slightly, I found it impossible to build any kind of "friendship" with new mums.