This post is meant to be a spinoff to my post, A Gal’s Guide to Making Friends in the Bay Area. Here’s a guide to making mom friends in the Bay Area, because no one should have to be a village of one. Please note that this list pertains to the San Francisco Peninsula, and the options referenced here span from Belmont to Palo Alto.
As a mom who grew up in the Peninsula and lives in the Peninsula, I know that making friends in the Bay Area comes with its own unique set of challenges. People are busy here, and if I’m being honest, not always reliable. The cost of living is high in the Bay Area, which means that a good chunk of households have two working parents. During my maternity leave, I knew I wanted to meet as many local moms as I could with children who were close in age. I felt pressure to achieve this before my leave was up because I knew I wouldn’t have much time when I returned to work. This, of course, had its cons — I eventually realized that I was pushing my baby too hard to shuttle around to various meetups.
Here are some ideas I put together on how to find your mom tribe.
Start while you’re expecting.
You don’t need to have a baby to start making mom friends! Here are two suggestions on how to start connecting pre due date.
Sign up for Centering Pregnancy.
Centering pregnancy is a really cool model of care that’s globally popular. In my experience, prenatal appointments lasted two hours while most “regular” prenatal appointments last about 15 minutes. It doesn’t necessarily mean that you get extra clinical time with your provider (unless you need it). It’s designed to foster community and act as an educational resource.
There were eight pregnant moms in my group, and each one was welcome to have a partner attend the sessions with them. We started out once a month and moved to more frequent sessions as we got closer to our due dates. All attendees sign a confidentiality agreement at the beginning of the first session.
It was a really good way to make my first “mom friends,” who all had due dates within two weeks of mine, were going to deliver their babies at the same hospital, and all lived pretty close by. We also got a group chat going which acted as a great resource for asking questions and even just sharing pics of our babies once they were born. I remember feeling so excited when the first baby of our group was born. From there on out, it was really cool getting baby news every few days as the due dates came up. Three of the babies, including mine, were born to our group three days in a row.
Three Centering Pregnancy programs that I’m aware of in the Bay Area are Kaiser Santa Clara, Kaiser Redwood City, and CPMC San Francisco.
Take prenatal yoga classes.
Prenatal yoga is fabulous in a way that regular yoga is not – because introductions are facilitated before class. Most instructors encourage students to go around and state their name, how many weeks pregnant they are, and what’s been on their mind lately/why they’re in yoga just to get a sense of camaraderie and relatability going. I really wish they did this in regular yoga, but I understand not everyone is into this. A lot of instructors also encourage students to get each other’s contact information after class. It’s always neat to find out that the person next to you is due the week before, or shares a due date with your favorite aunt, et cetera.
Two great organizations that I recommend for prenatal yoga are Peacebank in Redwood City and Blossom Birth in Palo Alto.
Continue after baby comes.
Find your local Parents Club.
Many cities in the Bay Area have local Parents Clubs, including:
- San Mateo Parents Club
- Burlingame Parents Club
- San Bruno Parents Club
- South San Francisco Mothers Club
- These clubs are generally great for parents of children under five. Once children go to elementary school, parents tend to become more involved with the PTA than the local parents club.
Parents Clubs organize a true buffet of events, including Parents Nights Out, exercise classes, manicures, playgroups, happy hours, picnics, and holiday parties. They do charge membership fees that are generally under $100 per year. The return can be pretty worthwhile, since many of these clubs are great places to get hand me down children’s items like baby monitors, toys, clothes, and sleep sacks. Their biggest benefit is playgroups grouped by age, which are prime opportunities for making mom friends.
Consider co-op childcare.
There are several co-op nursery schools sprinkled throughout the Bay Area. These require more of a time commitment, but come with the reward of community. Some schools, like the Redwood Parents Nursery School, organize parent-only mixers so that the parents can get to know each other.
Seek community.
In Belmont, lactation consultant Tracey Jedrzejek hosts a weekly Circle of New Moms play group. It’s free to attend, you’re likely to see some of the same faces again from week to week, and she often invites speakers including physical therapists, pediatric occupational therapists, and sleep consultants to talk to the group. She also has a group chat, which is a great way to keep conversations going offline.
I went to my first play group when my baby was six weeks old. Tracey has a great trove of toys in her office and introduced me to a tummy time pillow that helped her so much! She’s great at making age-appropriate toy suggestions and she’s always happy to dispense advice on all things
Don’t overlook the library.
The San Mateo County Library system offers a program called Baby Bounce, a half hour program that travels around to different libraries throughout the week. It’s a short but high-energy jamboree that keeps the little ones engaged and learning. It’s not just moms who attend – dads, grandparents, and nannies can all be seen with their little ones week after week.
A note about making mom friends with Peanut.
Can you make mom friends with the popular app Peanut? Yes. Is it the hard way to do it? Probably.
While I’m personally aware of a great Peanut success story between two mom friends, I also know that moms are busy and don’t always have time to arrange individual meetups, unless they live in the same apartment complex or their kids were born on the same day or something phenomenal is motivating them to actually get together. So my takeaway here is, enjoy Peanut but don’t rely on it singlehandedly. Swiping is easy, but the phrase “easy come, easy go” applies here. The more you get out into the world and meet other moms in person, the more connections you’ll make.
Photo by Liana Mikah on Unsplash
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