World's most ungrateful SAHM

[Moomina]

I am such a crap SAHM and I feel rotten about it. I gave up work after Xmas for personal reasons and should be relishing all the time I have to spend with ds. Instead I am bored rigid and frustrated. I love ds with all my heart and he is great company but at the same time I am finding the day-to-day routine of being at home all the time very difficult. I have very little money to go out with, no friends in the area and although I have tried a couple of toddler groups, do not feel as if I fit in. I have moved to an area that I don't like and I don't really feel has anything much for ds and I to do - I miss London where I could just get on a bus or a tube or, in fact, just walk around the corner!and be somewhere interesting and lively in a few minutes. I feel trapped in suburban hell

I know I am being so ungrateful. I should be happy that I can (just about) afford to be at home with ds while he's still young. But instead I feel as if I'm just going through the motions. I am so embarrassed about this that I was going to change my name but then...oh, I am being so pathetic aren't I? Does anyone else feel like this or am I just a lazy ungrateful old bag?

OK, what are you doing Thursday morning?

I know you live Sanderstead/Addiscoombeish as you've been to Soupy's baby group. I'm going to a M and T group in Woodside on thursday morning, do you want me to come and get you and force you out?!

Alternatively I'm leaving to go to Croydon in about 20 minutes ( I so shouldn't be on here atm) I'll buy you a coffee.

It will be easier as DS gets older and socialises more and therefore puts you in the situations to meet new people. I found it very hard with DS1, I didn't really get the hang of M and T's until I had DS2 and had to get out for the sake of my sanity!

serenity - ironically Thursday is out for me - I actually have somewhere to be lol! Thank you anyway.

BUT if I started a Croydon meetup thread...would you be up for coffee/lunch etc in the next couple of weeks? (I know Soupy is not a meeting-up kind of dragon but maybe some others might?)

Yes, I'm up for it. I have M and T's on wednesday PM and Thursday AM and I run a school coffee morning Tuesday AM, but apart from that I have no life

Any lunchtime is fine.

On one hand enjoy staying at home with ds and dd, but do miss adult company and my job. Try going to various different "baby/toddler things" but never get to talk much to anyone.Well except to ds/dd.

Moomina, you should try being stuck at the top of the hill trying to organise a $$$$$$$ baby fair.

Tots Time up at the Gypsy Moth is good - soft play, 9:30am - 11:30 every term time weekday (or used to be) £2.50 ish including 1 free tea/coffee and juice/biscuits for the toddlers (under 5s). I used to be there every Friday morning

Baby Rhymetime at the library?

Im sitting here this morn , thinking I could have written so many of these posts. Ive been more trapped than normal , having had to be at home stuck in one part of the house cos of building work. Ive started (or tried to) my own business again , but the house is ssssooo upside down Ive had nowere to do it!!Thankfully Ive got a room being done so it can do it in there, but our finnaces dont stretch to childcare , so I can actaully do it!!!! so its eveningns and weekends only. One friend of a friend said that its a glorified hobby, thanx great encouragement!!! Anywhooo thats possibly going back to wrk thread or childcare. Its just I dont do the sahm thing well at all, and as I havent had much social life recently I can really sympathise with you moomina.

Moomina, I think it takes time to adjust to being a SAHM. I hated it at first. I was bored, I had no friends, I hated Mums and Tots groups. I had PND as well, which didn't help. I felt like I had lost my identity - I wasn't any good at being a Mum, I didn't feel at all fulfilled by any of the things I was supposed to enjoy doing with my ds. I thought I was a terrible Mum and had made the biggest mistake of my life.

Now, I wouldn't change my life. I have ds2 now as well - I have a good circle of friends (admittedly thay all have kids, my childless friends fell by the wayside pretty quickly). With ds2 I do JoJingles (which I like because it is very structured and led: none of this children mill around while you attempt to make mindless small talk with people you have nothing in common with malarkey , Tumbletots is good too, for the same reasons (both are quite pricey though) And I've managed, after many years of feeling like a fish out of water, to find a Mums and Tots group not populated by cliquey, competitive Mums (well...most of them aren't )

But (do you want to hear this?) it's taken me years to get this comfortable with being a SAHM. I've been at it for eight years now - yikes. How old is your ds? It will get better when he starts at nursery - and you are bound to meet more like-minded people. I think a MN meet-up is a fab idea.

Btw, if I sound smug and utterly fulfilled as a SAHM now - I am absolutely not! I still have days where I hate my life, can't stand my kids and would give anything to walk out of the door, go to work, and talk to grown-ups. Those are the days when I spend more time than usual on MN A lot of being a SAHM is uttely mundane, lonely and brain-numbing: I think those Mums who say they love it all the time are on drugs.

Moominma - it will get better I promise. I hated being at home to start off with. Now, 8 months on, I have Monday and Tuesday to myself (well 8 month old ds but he loves watching me on mumsnet ), the rest of the week we have lazy cuddles in bed watching CBeebies in the morning, before going out to an activity. We walk there and back so are seldom back before it's time to start lunch. Then after lunch we do crafty things, or go to the park. And I really like being at home. And 8 months, even 6 mopnths ago, I never thought I would be saying that

You have all given me loads of ideas - thank you. My mum takes him to rhymetime on a Friday morning which he loves. I have been thinking about Tumbletots because I think I'd get on better with something more structured, as you say, fellow moo martha... I am so bad at 'Oh, what a delightful/clever/vile/ugly child you have' smalltalk

Didn't know about the thing at the Gipsy Moth, Soupy - sounds good. Where's your baby fair??

I do feel like I've lost my identity. totally. But I don't suppose I'm not going to get it back sitting around on my arse all day, whingeing!

I can vouch for the Gipsy Moth/Playbarn thing - used to take DS and nephew there on Tuesday mornings. It was fab, never very busy and you could always park . I thought they had restricted the mornings to Mons, Weds and Fris now, but double check anyway.

Don't feel bad, by the sounds of it every SAHM has been in your situation. I know i have, and probably go back there soon! It seems to go in cycles, one minute i am really busy and fulfilled and love life. The next i feel i am under achieving, am a bad mother, crap wife etc.
I find that planning things in advance helps. Even if it is maybes, then at least you can wake up in the morning and have something to do - other than clea, wash, cook, entertain, nurse etc!

moomina only read your initial message but i wouldn't feel guilty about not liking it. You start to loose your identity, i nearly lost the plot. My saving grace was going to college three days a week. Its a great balance.

My fair is in Oxted.

I'm meant to be working on it now but got sidetracked...

I'm cr*p at small talk too