Mummy Friends and Me - A Must for Maternity

 In an ideal world my mum would live next door and my best friend would be across the road. I would spend my maternity gossiping over lattes in Starbucks and have regular babysitters on hand so that I could still get to the gym, cinema, shopping , the list is endless.

Unfortunately ‘ideal’ is a far cry from my actual situation.

I live about 4 and a half hours from my home town so see my parents every few months. I have three highly ambitious sisters all perusing careers in different cities and my best friends live no where near me either! Of course I am hugely proud of all these wonderful women in my life, but it still sucks that at the time in my life where I get to take a breather from my own career, I can’t spend anywhere as much time as I would like with them.

I am very much a social butterfly, I love meeting new people and keeping busy. From my own experience I believe loneliness and isolation are strongly related to depression. As I had anticipated that I might struggle with this during my maternity leave, I decided to be proactive in trying to find a way to combat this.

I dived head first into the below!            

I came across this on Instagram during the very beginning of my maternity leave. I was stuck on the couch

 with a very fussy newborn and looking at every mummy hashtag possible to pass the time.

MummyBuddy is a wonderful buddy-up programme that connects mums to be with mums.  It gives the ‘mum to be’ a solid go-to for any questions about pregnancy, birth etc and gives the ‘mummy’ a chance to feel confident in their motherhood journey and pass on some wisdom. Of course, primarily,  there is the benefit of a new friendship for both.

I think this is an absolutely fantastic idea, and it really appealed to me because I would have loved to have done something like this while I was pregnant, especially being so far from my mum, I had so many questions. I am fortunate enough to work in the nursery product industry so I had plenty of people to ask, but still felt like I was becoming a nuisance as every answer I received triggered another question for me.

I am thoroughly loving being involved in this and have actually had the perfect match by the programme coordinators. As the programme is still relatively new, I am really excited to see how it develops!

Initially I heard about this in the office, and admittedly I wasn’t convinced by the idea. Curiosity got the better of me and I have since been converted to a musher.

Aptly described as ‘tinder for mums’ the mush app allows you to create a personal profile and meet like minded mums in a close proximity to you. Similar to tinder you can select possible new connections based on other peoples profiles, if you both choose to connect , hey presto, you potentially have a new ‘mummy bestie’.

There is also a features  ‘mush up’  aspect where you can organize local meetups.

Your day’s no longer have to be filled  repeatedly with peppa pig and thoughts of gin! (disclaimer – this will still happen frequently.          

Facebook Mummy Groups

2am. You are awake doing a night feed, and your significant other (with their useless nipples!!) is snoring loudly beside you while you contemplate ways to get away with murder. There are thousands of other mums in the same position at the very same time. Pop onto a mummy’s Facebook group and exchange some murder ideas. I absolutely love 2am clubs and they make night feeds so much better.

I joined several of these Facebook groups while pregnant, to get advice and recommendations for baby products and they did not disappoint. It is actually how I found my travel system, which I love, but that’s a whole other blog!

There are groups for support and advice on almost anything from breastfeeding to baby wearing.

Even though I have not met many of these women in person, they have made me laugh, cry, and feel so confidant as a mother by sharing their experiences of motherhood with me.

Maternity leave has been made so much more fun, and less lonely by my mummy friends.

Written by Joanna Johnston for her blog, Lily and Me.

You can follow her on Facebook here!