Will I ever make friends again?

[Bambinobaby]

My daughter is 16 months, and I have genuinely tried since the start of my maternity leave to make some kind of ‘mum’ friend and it’s just not happened. I’m not the type that can sit in all day so I went to baby groups 5 days a week, tried to interact with other mums at sensory, swimming, soft plays - anywhere there’s similar aged children, I’ve been there. But nothing. I’m a fairly social person, I can make conversation with most people but everyone seems to already be buddied up with people and all my pre-baby friends either aren’t around or aren’t at the same life stage as me so they really don’t seem to understand.

My mum has said that I will make friends once my daughter can make friends but right now I’m pretty lonely and bored. I have no village and I just thought having kids would bring a whole new social element to my life. Will I make friends when my little one starts school? Or goes to the bigger baby rooms and starts to interact with other children? Or am I just a lost cause??

This is hard because the only thing you have in common with these people is your motherhood and the ages of your children. Beyond the hell of the newborn phase this isn’t always enough to be the basis of a friendship. I made some mum friends when my kids went to school but these are ppl who are still my friends even though our kids are not super close any more. But I also work full time and have work friends, Uni friends and some childhood friends. You are not a lost cause but if you can (you don’t mention a partner) is there any way of taking up hobbies or interests you had pre children and making friends that way?

Is there and mums that you like ?
If so say along the lines of "wondered if you wanted to meet up , the days are long at the moment so we could do x?"

My eldest is 5 and youngest 6 weeks and I have no mum friends - in fact I have no one at all! I ageee it’s very hard OP.

It took me a while of trying different groups to find my tribe.

One group has a cafe so I went to lunch after the group each week which helped.

The first group I tried I went with a DFriend. When we invited some of them out after the next week's session they all looked at us as though we'd fallen from Mars. I think some people aren't that interested in making friends, but some are and you should find them.

Have you tried volunteering at something like Playgroup? That might help.

Forgot to say there's a group of Mum's that meet in our village and they've all met through the Peanut App.