With 4 months old daughter most of my day is filled with : nappy change, playing, picking Chloe up, rocking Chloe , holding Chloe or her toys so she can bite it, entertaining Chloe, tidying up, trying to clean, cooking, Internet sketching for answers to never ending questions and doing a lot of washing. I am doing all of that in an empty house whiles baby talking. Gosh at one point I actually worried that by a mistake I will start doing my baby talk to a grown up, or forget how to talk normally 😄 what I was really craving is a grown up company and being able to talk to someone about what I am experiencing, ideally someone who knows what I am taking about. Don’t get me wrong I love every minute I spend with Chloe but I wanted to be able just for an hour to go out for a coffee and talk to someone else than Chloe.
OPTION 1. MY FRIENDS
I would from time to time meet up with my friends but most of them are working full time which means that I can’t see them when I need it most – weekday in the mornings or afternoons. Also most of my friends don’t have kids. You should see theirs faces when I started talking about explosive poos. But it’s great to see them over the weekend to talk and thing about other things than baby 😄
OPTION 2. MEET SOME MUMS
– NCT
Best option in my opinion. Unfortunately I didn’t go to NCT course after being told by lots of people that it wasn’t good and didn’t teach them anything.they did however said that its a good way of meeting other mums. Based on those opinions I decided not to do it, what is the point of paying so much money just to meet mums??!! I regret not doing it now! If I knew how hart it was to meet other mums I would have done it. My advice is – do it!!!!
BABY GROUPS
This one is very good as it benefits your baby and you get to know other mums. If you are shy like me it can be hard to move the “friendship” from the class to actual meet ups.
Me and Chloe go to Baby Sensory Classes which are great! Chloe loves them and they are brilliant for her development! I meet quite a few Mums, and it’s something different to do once a week. As I mentioned I am very shy and also most of those mums knew each other already from the NCT Course so I haven’t make any friends to meet outside the class.
We will start now the Baby Massage. Again great for babies but also another way to meet other mums. Ideally I would have started it a bit earlier but couldn’t get free space.
We will also start going to a Play Group now that Chloe is a bit bigger and can actually play not just lay 🙂
INTERNET
There is a lot of different websites and apps. I been on all of them and tried all of them as well…
– Netmums, Mumsnet
Two of the biggest websites for parents. They organise meet ups which you can attend. If there is one in your area that great and you should defenitely go. Unfortunately there was nothing where I live. I am shy but I would always do everything what I can to change something that I am not happy with, I took things in to my own hands. I contacted regional ambassador for Mumsnet and asked about meet ups where I live. Outcome ? I will be organising them now!!! Our first one will be in 3 weeks time … I hope someone will come 😃
– Apps
There is a lot of apps but those in my opinion aren’t good enough yet. Location is a key when you want to meet other mums and that’s not very specific in most of them. I don’t thing that they are popular enough so the amount of mums on it isn’t amazing.
But it’s worth a try, there are some of them:
– mummysocial.com
– mumamie.com
– mumsmeetup.com
– meet mums now (app)
– parents nearby (app)
NEIGHBOURS
This really worked for me:-). We have moved in to our first house. There were 8 new houses build and luckily all of them been bought by young couples and most of them with kids. Because we were all new, all moved in pretty much on this same day, and we been seeing each other all the time it was really easy to start chatting. For shy person like me it was perfect!
CAFFEES
I go out every day for a walk with Chloe. If I don’t have any “date” with another mum or a friend, after walk I would go for a coffee on my own. It gets me out of the house and Chloe loves it, she is fascinated with people and lights (loves looking out of the window). If Chloe sleeps then I can read a magazine and enjoy my coffee- then it’s “me time” 😀. Very often there would be other mums doing exactly this same 🙂 now you just need to have the currage to start the conversation 😉.
This business is worst than dating 🙂
NEW YUMMY MUMMY 