Will I find new mum friends after NCT ghosting?

[VeeringSlowlyLosingIdentity]

Hi all

First up this is regarding friendships rather than romantic relationships but wasn’t sure where else to post. Posting under a different name to avoid ID.

Like a lot of people on here I’m sure, I signed up to NCT antenatal classes with the primary aim of making mum friends. I wasn’t optimistic as for most of the course people rarely spoke. However, once the babies started coming we all became very close. I wouldn’t say I had much else in common with most of the women, however the friendships were invaluable and motherhood would’ve been v lonely without them.

FFwd to when our LOs were turning 6m and the conversation seemed mostly about weaning. I was finding that stage really challenging for various reasons, and suspect I was also suffering from some late PPD. Everyone kept sharing these IG posts with influencers and the crazy lengthy efforts they’d gone to. I’d so far managed to ignore it when people were bragging and “keeping up with the Jones” but the fact that I’ve previously suffered from an ED made this content overwhelming.

I therefore asked them to if they’d create a separate chat group without me in it, in order to share recipes etc. I didn’t explicitly say I’d had an ED but alluded to MH issues being triggered as to why I was finding it hard. They agreed it was a good idea and were v supportive. I received individual messages/calls/gifts from most of them.

However, ffwd a few weeks and it’d become clear that I’d been frozen out of the group entirely. I’ve since attempted to reach out to a couple of the mothers that I was closest with, but have just been ghosted. Not sure why this has happened. I am old enough to have lost friendships before, but the rejection still hurts.

Have been feeling really down about this so am just looking for some advice on how I can either move on from this, or if it’s worth trying to build some bridges? And I guess I’m looking for some reassurance that I’ll find some more mum friends in the future? Should I be more proactive?

Thanks for reading what’s troubling my heart.

I would think they all just started talking more in the newly created chat, and the rest happened naturally.

I managed to make no friends in the birthing classes as was moving post partum, and the WhatsApp groups are a real pain - gear up, the nursery and school groups are endless drivel at times and then occasionally useful/funny. You didn't lose anyone not worth cutting off - good you found out that none of them wanted anything other than a superficial friendship.

You've got years of play dates and groups to find better friends

Don't worry. I made a group of friends in a baby massage group that I thought would be friends for life. However we've drifted apart now to really only being FB friends. I then made another group of friends when DS was a toddler and we are still friends and meet up regularly. I now have another group of friends that I've made sine DS starts school. Plenty opportunities ahead.

I agree. They sounds like cows but you did ask to be excluded in a way. Hope things work out for you in the future

Just to clarify about the groups - we were supposed to be keeping the original group, there was to be an additional new group (that I wasn’t in) JUST for sharing recipes. Like a place to keep them. I was just tired of all the oneupmanship of people boasting that they’d spent all afternoon making bloody organic vegan meals blessed by the Dalai Lama himself. For someone who’s had an ED, all the online influencer stuff on what you (or your baby) should be eating is really toxic. I can avoid IG but I couldn’t avoid people sending it to me all day long and it was getting too overwhelming.

I think opting out of a chat makes things tricky. I often mute group chats as I find them a bit much. Have a look for baby groups in your area. Those friendships obviously weren’t meant to be. Good luck x

Against the grain, as everyone is being very sympathetic to you. But to be honest, you sound like you were pretty rude and awkward?

I did NCT
Total waste of money

The woman running it was crazy and the other women were self entitled wannabees I didn't even finish the 6 weeks it was a total waste of time and money and I soon made other friends ❤️ you wil be fine I promise

I understand where you are coming from (I never had the energy for much cooking and hearing other's efforts made me feel guilty) but maybe they picked up on your attitude towards their approach to weaning and felt criticised...you would have been better just to mute them for a while.
Like others say though plenty of opportunity to make friends going forward.

I think this is probably true and nicely put. I think it's so easy to mute chats if necessary that asking people to 'manage' you when you hadn't known each other that long might have made it tricky. When you have a young baby you don't always have much time for checking in on individuals, group chats can just be easier.

I'd take the view that one of their main shared interests is haute cuisine for infants and that this really isn't your thing.

I can't imagine choosing to spend time with other mums like this.

I remember having a fleeting feeling of inadequacy when I saw a whole freezer drawer dedicated to titchy portions of Annabel Karmel recipes at a friend's house but it really was fleeting.

If you're desperate for mum friends, take your baby to various groups and I'm sure you'll find new friends.

I've only stayed good friends with one of my antenatal group. That was enough for me. The friendships I value most are the ones where our common factor isn't that we are mums of babies but that we are people who get on anyway.

Your husband sounds like a laugh lol.

I imagine they got tired of this after a few weeks or so... just the novelty of early weaning. And if not, and thats their main topic of interest, theyre probably not the friends for you anyway?

Ah that is a shame OP, but I think once you'd excluded yourself from weaning chat and they were in the thick of it in the other group they all formed a closer bond and perhaps also felt awkward about meeting you face to face as weaning was their current focus so you dropped off their radar.

I'm still in touch with my NCT group but we rarely meet up now. Since the kids started at school and widened their friendships I mostly hang out with the parents of current school friends. Unfortunately my DC is in the same class as the most competitive of all the NCT group's DC who we generally try to avoid as life is too short to be drawn into her one up manship!

You asked to be excluded so 🤷‍♀️

I went on one of those course things, the nearest one was in the town 20 miles away. Obviously some of the attendees lived in the opposite direction so were further than 20 miles away, and I think we were all just too far apart to ever bother with each other again. I tried local groups and the mums seemed to know each other but never bothered to talk to me. So here I am with a school age child and still no mum friends!

My life got massively better when I left my NCT group and just accepted that I didn't fit in. It was such a relief. Then I adventured put on my own with my DC and went to rhyme time at the library, stay and play at children centres, everything going. I took my DC to something basically every day, and through crossing paths with other mums I started to make friends. Some of these have been fantastic, enduring friendships for several years, and some just for s shorter season.

Sorry to hear you had an ED, and well done for removing yourself from all the toxic and triggering input on IG etc.

Try to trust that it will be ok, it will :)

I'm sorry it didn't work out for you Op @VeeringSlowlyLosingIdentity but there will be other opportunities to meet new people.

My NCT classes were done online as had baby during lockdown so it didn't really provide a "natural" opportunity to get to know people properly. I'm still in the group chat but I've never met up with anyone or spoken since with anyone!

I went back to work at 7 months so didn't really bother with "mum" friends. I too like someone else mentioned upthread didn't see NCT classes as somewhere I'd make "life long friends", why?! It's just a relatively short phase of your life and what I want are friends I have a connection with irrespective of being a parent now.

The competitive Mum thing is bonkers - I think I not only experienced it but was party to it when I look back at some of my cringey fb posts from that time. I seem to have completely swung the other way with DS2. It’s made me a lot less anxious. I go to the odd baby group, smile nicely, bit of chit chat. But from DD1 is more about the friends she made at primary school (with the whole Mum thing there being a bit of a minefield too). I’ve developed a far more ‘stuff it, let then be who they want, can’t be bothered, I’m fine with my cow and gate purees’ type attitude. It’s such a bloody farce and so long as DS is happy - everyone can butt out/do what they want.

In fact if there was some sort of group chat with fancy organic recipes, I’d take great joy in posting a pic of a jar of pear puree. And I’d probably be more likely to find my kindred spirits that way…

I’ve been on this position from the other side, and the problem is, conversation isn’t something that can easily be categorised.

So you wouldn’t go on chat 1 and say ‘I’ve made organic kale and butternut pasta boiled in the tears of angels this afternoon, Isabelle ate it pretty well!’ then go on chat 2 and say ‘Isabelle has refused her nap this afternoon, I think we’re losing the third nap, noooo!’ It would be more likely to be ‘I made that organic kale and butternut pasta boiled in the tears of angels and I was so pleased Isabelle ate it! But then she was a nightmare this afternoon - worried she’s transitioning to two naps’

Then someone replies asking for the recipe of the butternut pasta and adds ‘James has been difficult to get down for the third nap as well’ and the conversation continues in that vein.

It won’t have been personal as such but it is something to bear in mind, that ring fencing topics of conversation don’t work.

You asked to be excluded from the group and now are upset you’ve been excluded? I’m sorry you’ve had issues around eating in the past but really making a fuss about some new mums sharing an Instagram recipes from their new babies is going to cause some eye rolling. You could have just scrolled past.

Similar to @BlackAmericanoNoSugar , we adopted so I didn't have an NCT group. I rocked up at various toddler groups with a 2.5 year old and chatted. I tried about 4 toddler groups before I found one I clicked with, and I made some friends there, then more at school too. It'll be OK.

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I don't think you've been ghosted so much as the conversation has organically moved into the other group, probably because weaning/baby food is the topic of conversation that the others in the group are currently preoccupied with so that's what they want to talk about. You have requested they talk about it in the other group so that's what they are doing.

I did something similar when everyone else's NCT babies started talking. My DD is autistic and non-verbal. I have made my peace with it now but the hardest point for me was when the babies were 12-18 months and were starting to talk while my DD was miles away from all her communication milestones.

I really struggled, partly because this was right at the start of lockdown and so couldn't contact anyone professional for support or to share my worries, and ended up muting the NCT chat group as each new word or phrase being proudly reported would make me cry and send me into a spiral of anxiety.

I explained why I wasn't participating in the group and made a huge effort to contact people individually to keep in touch. It was hard going and I did lose contact with quite a few of the group but this was starting to happen anyway. If I hadn't made the deliberate efforts to keep in touch, I expect the group would have naturally loved on without me.

I found once the babies were getting more independent and nights were easier we seemed to have less need of the 24/7 support group that the chat offered originally.

'moved on' that was supposed to say. Not loved.