Joining an Informal New Moms Group--Best Thing I Ever Did

Well, best thing I ever did besides having the kid :)

And when I say "join", I really mean "show up for their totally informal weekly meetings at a local coffee shop".  I showed up for my first meeting yesterday, completely unsure of what types of women would be there and whether or not we'd click.

There were ALL KINDS of other women there, from so many walks of life.  It was so amazing to get everyone's perspective on not only raising babies, but raising them in our city (San Francisco).  I don't have a lot of mom friends, and none who are urban like me, so I thought I was being a bit neurotic.  Well, maybe I am really still neurotic, but at least I'm not the only one, haha.

And we clicked almost immediately.  Everyone else was a regular, and so they had a lot of questions for me at first: where do you live, what do you do, how old is the baby, what does hubby do, etc.  But even once the introductions were out of the way, we had a ton to talk about.  And it was kind of funny--my son is only 5 months old, but he was one of the oldest babies there so some of the other moms actually had questions for me!  It was nice after soaking up all the advice I could get to finally give some of that advice back to others who need it.  There was one mom of a 6 week old baby who I think I really reassured a bit.

So basically what I'm saying here is, find out where and when your community or neighborhood new moms group meets (if there's not one, then start one, there will be a ton of grateful moms, trust me) and go!  You will make new friends, bond over raising your kids in your community and just have a good time.  If nothing else it's an excuse to get out of the house.

(By the way, this was not just SAHMs, but also some new moms who were still on leave and planning to return to work soon, so don't feel like you can't go if you are in that boat). 

How else to you connect with other moms in your community?