How did you connect with other new mums?

[Anonymous]

I am writing an article about connecting with other mums in your area and looking for ideas and suggestions.

For example, when a mum is on maternity leave for the first time and is new to parenthood it can be daunting to find ways to meet other mums in their area. Especially if a mum is on maternity leave and has not got the security of chatting with her work colleagues daily anymore – what did you do when this was you?

How did you connect with other mums near you? Did you find ways to make friends and get out of the house?

All suggestions very welcome….thanks guys.

[pookie2]

Gets easier once you have kids in school, creche as you start to see the same faces with the same interests / issues….. Is tougher first time round.

– Websites like this
– playgroups (although can be hard to locate)
– breast-feeding / nursing mum groups (often easier to locate if you in that group)
– exercise classes like pilates in pregnancy & even the gym
– shops like mothercare, supermarket checkouts & baby aisles (admittedly you have to be a bit outgoing to start a conversation with a stranger)
– cruise lots playgrounds even if your baby is tiny – other mums & dads will talk to you if you give the slighest encouragement
– places like Stephenstown Pond where mums & kids congregate
– bay massage classes etc

Generally I found that pregnant mums with toddlers most open to a chat, esp if you can offer a bit of help with a toddler etc for a min. It is much appreciated & on the whole mums find pregnant women unthreatening.

Be prepared to give your name & number to every possible contact.If I was doing it again, I’d print out business cards! You’d be surprized how many will give you a buzz – esp if you drop them a text. I know that I’m only delighted to give a bit of company to new mums – makes me feel importtant / useful!

Also PND website, Cuidiu, pre-natal classes, health nurses can be good sources of contacts (ask the nurse to pass your number to any other new mums in the area etc – some will, some won’t….)

Generally start making the contacts when you still have a bump – it is easier to identify targets who also have bumps!

[munchin]

blast lost a big post there
Def websites – Eumom worked for me – i joined the birth club for the month i was due –
from dd1 i’m still internet friends(on facebook) with 3 of the mammies – from dd2 i made a FAB group of friends we went off and set up our own private forum and there’s about 16 of us still in touch and 11 off us are off to kilkenny for the night on sat, we’ve had a few big met ups with families kids etc and then there a few smaller groups that live closer that meet up from time to time – 3 of the mammies live within an hour of me and we meet up about every 2months my older dd and one of the older ds’s have
become best buddies 😉
actually when i was on leave on DD1 there was a drogheda mammies thread on Eumom and i met up with 2 of the mammies in Duleek – Mumstown was set up around that time and some of the Drogheda thread mammies were the original posters here and while we may not post as often on here anymore i still have them as friends on Facebook. not on eumom anymore between our own forum and here don’t have the time 😆 😆

when dd2 was a baby DH joined a local music group for babies – both for her and him to meet new people and he always went to Bagel Bar meets

as pookie says it does get easier when they start school/preschool etc. DD2 has become "best friends in the whole world" as she puts it – with a little boy in our estate since she started playschool – they live in our estate and we’ve walked past there house thousands of times over the yrs

[Jedt]

If you lose a post just hit the back button and you should find the last page you were on where you were typing. Then just copy the text and when you come back into the thread, paste it in!

HTH 🙂

[Author]

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