No family or friends, how to be sociable?

[Zacs1]

LO is my first child. He is 3 years old and is the sweetest little boy. He absolutely adores me and I adore him. However as much as I love being his best friend, I've realised that his social interaction with other people is limited.
He goes to nursery 3 days a week and throughly enjoys it there. Other than that there is very little contact with any other people. I do not have many friends and my partner is a bit of a loner. LO loves being around people and is very sociable unlike me and his father. I hate that I dont have many friends or family that LO can be around, I feel that I'm limiting him. How can I make friends? How can I help LO be around more people/ children?

It will have been difficult because of lockdown, but I made friends when I took DD to toddler group. The first one I went to was very cliquey, but we moved house, and the friends I made at the local toddler group are still friends even though our DC are now at university.

School is the best place for your son to make friends. There will be lots of playdates and parties. When DD was in reception parents always used to go along with their child for the first playdate. It was a great way to get to know other people.

I am like you OP and my eldest is 11. Once they are in preschool and school they start making their own friends and you can sign them up for sports or other classes to keep them busy too. I used to worry about whether my lack of social connection would affect my children but I see now that the children who are naturally sociable will find their own way and the ones who are quiet will hopefully find a small group of friends at school. Instead of stressing about it just enjoy you time with your DS. When he is in school he will make friends with certain children and you can arrange playdates with them.

I think if he is at nursery part of the week, that's likely plenty. Certainly, when I was a kid (I'm 40 now), there were no baby or toddler groups. We stayed at home unless I was in childcare.

My 3 year old is in nursery 4 days a week. We sometimes see other children at the playground on the weekends. But I don't go out of the way to get him to interact with others. We have no family nearby, so only see them a few times a year. And we haven't really seen (our adult) friends except maybe 3 times this past year. I think it's completely normal for children to probably mostly interact with their family at that age, unless in childcare or if you are a SAHP, at toddler classes (of which there haven't been many, though some probably starting back up). If you really feel like you want him to mix with other children, a playground (where you go regularly and will get to know people) or a group/class is probably your best bet.

I think time with you and time at nursery sounds like a lovely balance actually. As long as when he's with you you're getting out and about doing different things and not just plonked in front of the tv.

These replies are nice, but I think they might miss the point a little bit.

We model to our children a ‘norm’, and if our children never see us being friendly and interacting outside the family, this can in turn be more difficult for them.

There were toddler groups around 40 years ago, by the way.

There were toddler groups around 40 years ago, by the way.

And earlier. My auntie started a very successful toddler group when my 53 year old cousin was a tot.

Everyone is different. For me it the norm not to have a big social life and i am happy and enjoy my life. There is nothing wrong with my norm. My children are a lot more sociable than me - and i do everything i can to help them be happy and interact with their friends.