Mums who have gone back to work and met with other Mums during their time off **RANT

[Lushwirral]

Long title I know, but i feel like I need to get this one off my chest.

Im due back to work in 3 months, with my LO going to her grandparents.

My time spent with the other Mums I have met is obviously going to reduce and to be totally honest I am going to be glad of this.

I meet with a group of six mums at least once a week and Ive always liked all of them, with everyone getting on great, however, I have recently started to notice some cracks appearing.

What I mean is that some Mums are starting to judge others about their way of weaning or following a routine, with little digs thrown in.

I suppose what Im saying is that I really, really cant be bothered with this type of behaviour and Im hoping the contact dies down once I go back to work.

I know who my friends are and I thought i had got rid of toxic friends. I just dont feel like I should stay in touch purely as we have had babies.

Anyone else experienced this?

 

[leelee]

No. I have been so lucky with the group I meet up with. No-one is competitive and everyone is very respectful of how the other parents. We have BF & FF babies, those that follow strict routines, those that don't. TW and BLW etc etc.

Everyone is very interested in other parenting styles but no-one is judgemental. That's why I am so sad that I am moving to Scotland in 2 weeks time. Even though it is the right move for us, I don't know if I will ever meet another group as friendly or chilled as that one

 

[XfairyhopesX]

Luckily for me my baby friends are also some of my actual friends theres are about 6 of us with babies ranging from same as aiden to 2yrs, but if i had gone to groups and met other mums thats would upset me too tbh. x

 

[littlepne]

I've also been lucky with our baby friends but we were a very small group to begin with. We all have different ways of doing things but I suppose when you see how the babies are progressing you can see that whatever they do works for them, as what we do works for us.

As a PP above said, we're interested but not judgemental. And just because the way we do things now works for this baby, doesn't mean it will for another baby!! It's nice to have different viewpoints.

Plus all the other babies are really cute

 

[LankyDoodle]

I cut off contact with the mums from my antenatal. 8 mums did the classes, 1 never completed the course, 1 never really met with the rest of us, 1 was hit and miss, I met up til the week I had my LO then on and off til LO was 3 months old, the other 4 are cliquey as anything. They remained facebook friends until abotu a month ago when I had enough of their shrowded insults and digs and the fact that they were unable or unwilling to accept that not everyone runs their life or approaches parenthood in the same way that they do; and that doesn't mean we are not committed to making friendships or keeping in touch with 'friends'!

I get totally what you mean but I didn't wait until going back to work; I did it asap. I don't have to see these people day to day. At 3 or so months I couldn't meet very often as I was doing a massage course or something, then we went on holiday. After that I was not really welcomed back into the group, even though I'd still met when I could occasionally. One of the others in the group had a similar issue and yet she was accommodated by a changed meeting day! So what else could I do?!

I personally hate being tied to a group of people. It got to a point where if any of them saw a new group or activity, they'd want us all to go together; but I like to meet a variety of people and spend my time with different people and have my LO meet as many other babies as possible. I don't want to become part of some little group who only ever do things together. So I didn't! I suppose it was easier for me as I am the only one of the group who lives away from the rest of them so I did have difficulties as times anyway - the fact no one ever wanted to meet in the middle did cause some friction. They also showed some snobbery towards my husband because he is 'just' a carpenter who 'just' makes handmade kitchens from scratch/to measure (bespoke) with his own hands and who is 'just' content to be happy in his job rather than wanting to trample over people to get to the next step like some of them!

So yeh I do understand what you are saying and I remedied it by simply not becoming tied to them for every activity (although at that point I wasn't really trying to distance myself), branching out with new people, people I'd met at other antenatal groups etc. Over time I just stopped making excuses as I thought 'why should I have to? It's not some kind of cult or membership club and I am allowed to do other things on a Friday morning other than run round frantically trying to get everything together so I can drive 25 miles to meet them for coffee!' I am happier for it and now meet with a few different mums who I really enjoy spending time with and who live locally to me.

I am the first of my close friends to have a baby, and all my close friends live away anyway. So I have relied on making new mummy contacts.

 

[Mellie1988]

I hate how some mums get really competitive....I rather not give them my time!

My SIL was like that, we had our LOs 6 months apart, her LO was the eldest and everything that she did, it was like I was expected to follow, BF, co sleeping, BLW, setting a routine from a young age....like BLW for instance, she started BLW a few weeks before her LO was 6 months, then when it came to DDs time to wean, it was all "ugh, baby jars are foul, why would you want to do that when you can just give them what we have, my LO is great now and can eat everything", I didn't even give DD jars, I made everything from scratch....but she looked down her nose at me, making sly digs and comments when she could like "what the hell is that, it looks like sick" etc. DD used to put alot of things in her mouth, SIL blamed it on me not letting her experiment with food and not doing BLW....

Sorry went off on my own little rant there lol!

In the end I fell out with SIL, something completely different to our LOs, but i'm glad haha....we speak now, but only on civil terms when we need too.

x

 

[Mellie1988]

Oh and just to add, we have a variety of different mummy and baby friends now and I try see them all separately during the week, gives us something to do on the days i'm off work with the children and they get to play with different toys, we goto toddler groups, sure start centres, soft play etc

x

 

[Justagirlxx]

Well my bestfriend and I have completely different parenting styles, but this doesn't effect us at all because we have been friends for years and we are pretty opposite in most things anyways. I think if I had met a bunch of new women and been friends with them just because we all have kids, different parenting styles would be a bigger deal because your friendship is based around the fact that you are all mothers. Whereas me and my BF are friends because of other things!

 

[babyblog]

Whilst i haven't had your experience (my group of 6 are lovely) i do think it is quite common to see less of them once you are back at work. When new mums meet-you are just thrown together becuase you have a baby, that doesn't mean you will be the best of friends -it just means you have some support in the early days when you really need it.When you go back to work your time with your LO is precious, so spend it doing whatever you WANT to do-not what you think you should be doing. Also, even in a group situation you are often more friendly with some of the mums than others-maybe just choose to spend with the one you are closest too? I do think it is nice for the babies to socialise, so if oyu don't see any other mums/babies it may be nice to keep meeting up but if you don't want to then don't

 

[helen1234]

i think its hard to find friends who parent exactly the same and have a perspective of everything you say above.
same as everything in life what ever it will be we see things different. i hate thinking i'm dictating what i do so if its not a conversation i shut up, i'm interested in all aspects of parenting weaning and feeding extra cos sometimes i might just learn something i may want to have a bash at. that how i try to get round it xx

 

[amygwen]

I'm sorry your baby group is like that. I haven't gone to any so I haven't had any troubles. Although I have a few friends that live near me who had babies around my age and they are so competitive about their children and I'm not anything like that so I don't understand why they're constantly going on about it.

 

[bubbles123]

Well my bestfriend and I have completely different parenting styles, but this doesn't effect us at all because we have been friends for years and we are pretty opposite in most things anyways. I think if I had met a bunch of new women and been friends with them just because we all have kids, different parenting styles would be a bigger deal because your friendship is based around the fact that you are all mothers. Whereas me and my BF are friends because of other things!

This is just like my best friend and I. We are different in every way in terms of parenting.
She BF's, I ended up FF. She co-sleeps, I can think of nothing worse. She did BLW and I chose TW. She uses cloth nappies, I use disposables. She baby wore, I never did. She is into attachment parenting, whilst that's not my thing at all. She is even a devout Christian and I'm an atheist! And yet we have never once had a disagreement or been even slightly judgemental of the other in any way. We were friends for years before we had our kids, since university, and that is so important. I think it can be an issue if the only thing you have in common is children and that can lead to a lot of competitiveness as you don't really have any other basis for the friendship.

 

[Windmills]

I never really made friends at antenatal classes, the class was miles away from my house and there were about 20 couples there!
My sister is my only proper mummy friend, but that's different really because we've always done loads together and tend to do things similar ways