“I get by with a little help from my friends.”

Never has a song lyric meant so much to me. Being in a city with a baby where we have no family, we’ve leaned on our friends pretty heavily.

Let’s be honest, everyone says when you have a kid, you’re going to lose your friends. Well, I quite like my friends and I definitely don’t want to lose them. Sure, we can make some new ones along the way, but we have great friends now. Just because they don’t have kids, doesn’t mean we have to lose them. Granted, we’re not going to be getting wasted till 2am every night (some nights… one night a month? year?), but we can still be a part of their lives and vice-versa.

We haven’t taken them up on babysitting quite yet, though they have marked it our calendar, but we have used them for just about everything else.

Thought I’d share with you guys some ways to get your friends involved without going to the bars every night. Believe it or not, they do want to still be a part of your lives.

Invite Your Friends Over – We’ve found this is has been the easiest way to hang out with our friends. Sure, you’re place might be a mess, but at least you’re most comfortable there. Plus, if you need to breastfeed, you can escape to the bedroom, if it makes everyone more comfortable. We’ve been having people over for Cowboys games, and it has gone really well. They get to hang out with Gray, hang out with us, plus, root for the Cowboys.

Lunch/Brunch – We’ve found that Saturday/Sunday brunch has been easily manageable with Gray. We’ll feed him before we go and we’ll take a bottle just in case. We haven’t really had any problems, which is good. No one wants to be around a baby crying and acting like a fool at a restaurant. Sure, our time will come, but it hasn’t yet.

Visit Friends Homes – Same concept as hanging out your place. As long as they’re cool with you feeding at their place. As I mentioned before, we had our first friend’s house visit not too long ago. Everything went really well. It was like the foundation of being out of the house more.

Walks/Workouts – Our friends have accompanied Dibs on walks around the neighborhood and workouts down at Marina Green. Once we get a BOB, then we’ll be able to do more of this.

Free Babysitters – Finally, you’ll eventually trust one of your friends to look after your little person for at least a couple of hours, when you go on your first date away from the baby.

Escaping with Your Friends – Sunday night was my first time to escape (non-work-wise) with my friends, as we went and played golf. I’ve forced Dibs to have ladies nights, too. It just really helps to lean on your friends to get a break from the daily goings-on of parenthood.

If you have great friends, then they’ll offer to bring you food, take you out

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