Disappointed with your social life?

[MummyToSteven]

Hi, just wondered if anyone felt the same with me about post baby social life - slightly disappointed and out of control.

I am the first of my uni friends/school friends that I keep in touch with to take the plunge and have a baby. My closest friends all seem to live right at the other end of the country - which makes arranging to see them slightly difficult - possible but not very frequent. My best friend lives in London, and we stay at her flat roughly one weekend every six weeks. I have a few good friends locally, but they are childless professionals and seeing me seems to come very subordinate to their career. One friend was meant to call me at 4 to let me know if she would be okay to meet me - she finally called me at 7 to let me know that she had too much work to prepared for tomorrow to meet me. This sort of thing happens repeatedly with her. I made a few friends at ante-natal class, but the weekly lunches have for various reasons fallen by the wayside, and the neat little group of 3 seems to have outgrown its purpose, and seems to have broken down into seeing each other at baby & toddler group, rather than going out shopping in town etc like before. I suppose I am partly disappointed that as a mum, and not at work, my time is seen as being of far less worth than theirs, and in general I tend to be at people's beck and call socially - i.e. filling convenient gaps in their free time.

Any advice, other than to keep going to baby & toddler type events and hope to meet some nice types (and to go on MN meets, of course :-))

It's hard isn't it, MtS. I too was (& still am) the first of my contemporaries to have a baby (I was 26 when I had ds, 29 now - not that young...). Like you, I lived in a different city to my best friend which was difficult. ds is now 2.5 & I'd say I've been up for going out with my old friends for about the past 6 months. It's different to before, of course, but I'm much happier leaving dp to look after ds in the evenings now he's so much bigger, & the initial exhaustion/culture shock of having a small baby has passed. I've made lots of local friends since having ds (mostly at toddler group, sorry!) which fill the time during the day pretty well, & solitary shopping is fun too. I work part-time which also gives me interaction outside the house (dp swears I come home in a better mood when I work...).

Not sure I'm being terribly helpful, but can definitely sympathise, & it will get better. Your ds is still quite little isn't he? I do find that ds makes me laugh so much now, with his games of being a tiger & chatting to me constantly, so you've got that to look forward to.

Think of the upside though.. when your baby is out of nappies and your more free to go out they will be at home no doubt feeling like you are now. Don't worry you're not the only one with not much of a social life and although I know and meet alot of different people I find it almost impossible to meet 'good' friends - seems like a thing of the past.

hi MTS,

things just seem to change don't they. I was an early baby-haver too, but, thankfully, many followed suit and the gaps of 1-2-3 years between our kids seem like nothing now. Looking back, I think some friends - childless ones - don't know what you want. I think some of them wrongly assume that you won't be able to make social gatherings, I don;t think they mean to leave you out, I think they just don;t quite get it. I think some think that what you want is time to be a family, when in fact, you get loads of that, and we all need time to be ourselves too!

My ante-natal group fell apart too, and I was actually quite upset by the experience - it was still going strong when I returned to full-time work at 10 months. For the next year I mananged to see them a few times, then went on maternity leave again, and I kind of thought I could still be included. But despite my efforts, those who had always been around had formed a nice little group and I wasn't part of it. I stil feel a niggle of hurt about that. (random whine, that's of no relevance to you, really!).

Not sure I have much advice to offer, but you are no way alone. Over the last 4 years I have met two mums with whom I do feel I've formed a strong friendship. And a few more with whom I get along, and whose company I enjoy (but, generally, still at the level of a day-time mums-only friendship.) The otehr two I invite to parties and know their dhs. I've met a huge amount of people, but I reckon two good friends is not bad!

If you really want to pursue more friendships you could try the non-baby route - evening classes etc