Friendships changed after kids?
hopkintonbride
member
We are in our early thirties and most of our friends do not have children. Now that we have DS it has been a challenge to get them to understand that things aren't the way they used to be and I can't just throw him in the car, drive 2 hours to someone's house, and just hang out on a whim. Everything takes a lot more planning now and DS is happiest when i stick to a schedule, which is almost impossible when traveling or visiting other people's houses. Plus, my focus is on my family now and it's hard enough to get everything done on the weekends (quality time, laundry, groceries, cleaning), without having to take a whole day to go visit a place that I spent most of the time keeping DS from getting into everything within reach and sacrificing his naps on top of that. How do you manage keeping friendships after kids?
Re: Friendships changed after kids?
we have had the same issue - even with my MIL! she will never come to our house it seems, we always seem to have to go there. I'm going to start standing my ground on that one now, there is no reason why we always have to go there (45 minutes away).
we have found that we did stop hearing from a group of friends that we had, who don't have kids, or unmarried. We did make a new group of friends, i think the older DD gets, the more we will do things w/ our neighbors who have kids and such.
it seems to be a balancing act, but i try not to let it bother me. I'd rather have quality family time than run around and mess the schedule all up!
Yep, same here. People look at me like I have 3 kids when I tell them we won't keep her out past bedtime just because we want to go to dinner. I usually just send DH by himself or we have a nice night at home. They also don't understand why we can't just bring DD over to their house, and put her down there when it's bedtime and then put her in the car when it's time to go. Seriously?!? And our friends all have older kids, like high school and college age. I'm tired of hearing, "we just took our kids with us wherever we went." Um, ok. I'm not you.
So yes, friendships change because they have moved down the 'priority list'. I think that's normal. We (us moms here) just don't have the time to nurture friendships like we used to.
Yes, my friendships changed drastically after I had my son. My friends without kids didn't understand that I couldn't do whatever I wanted to do, whenever I wanted to do it anymore. They acted like my son was a purse that I could just take everywhere. My friends with kids, had kids already in school, so they forgot about all the baby stuff, and again, didn't understand why I couldn't do whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted to do it anymore. Again, they acted like my son was a purse that I could take anywhere.
Honestly, I just stopped trying to keep up those friendships. I stopped caring. I tried my best and it was never good enough, so whatever.
Wow, I think we're pretty lucky with our friends here. I'm 28 and most of our friends are in the 25 - 35 bracket. They've all been awesome. Granted we have a small close knit group of great friends and then a whole bunch of acquaintances.
DS is on a loose schedule, that's what works best for him. I'm happy to bring him most places and he's a brilliant wee boy. If I'm meeting friends, they're totally happy to arrange a time that works best for us, either before or after a nap.
Everyone is great about coming to our house to hang out, especially now that DS is rolling heaps and getting into everything. Bar one couple, we're the only ones with a baby but all our friends are stoked on him. The boys always chat about bringing him snowboarding and mountain biking when he's bigger and they're so good with him.
Not really - I find that now everyone we know is having babies (we're in our early 30s) so it's a really fun time. More difficult to get together - but we have lots of fun doing other stuff (picnics, playdates, BBQs). Plus, everyone has an extra PNP so DD can take her nap wherever we are (if we go somewhere for dinner). Yeah, it's kind of a pain to wake her up and put her back down at home, but she's so sleepy that I don't think she even realises what's going on.
Routines are great and all, but overall I think a baby should fit into your life, not take over it.
Eleanor Noelle - 18/05/12 Claire Elisabeth - 16/-5/10