When my baby was a few weeks old, we moved to our new house in a new metro. Being a stay at home mom in a new city was intimidating, but I was up for the challenge (and it has been really nice).
I’ve known for a long time that I wanted to be a stay at home mom someday, but I didn’t really ever picture what that would look like until I was pregnant. Let’s be honest too, as somewhat of an idealist, I thought it would be a lot easier than it would be. I thought my baby would be a semi-slug, but I was happily surprised to see how social and alert she was from the get go. I thought my postpartum recovery would be easier and I’ve been to the ER and a lot of specialists.
While those are the variables I didn’t know anything about, the ones I knew about? I knew I’d need to make friends and that I’d need to have breaks. I knew I’d need hobbies still and didn’t want to commit to a life of endless TV.
I realized quickly after Devin and family helped after my medical junk that I would need to be realistic about my needs as a parent and my needs for myself. In this post, I’ll talk about what has helped me in being a stay at home mom in a new city with a baby.
FIND A WAY TO MAKE FRIENDS
Everyone’s social needs are different, but I really wanted to do something out of the house with people once a day. This seemed far fetched since I didn’t actually know anyone here + I realized the mom’s at church all had a lot more kiddos than we did. I started out by seeing what our area had for free: library groups! People were super friendly, but I wanted to be able to do more. My days were becoming monotonous, I wanted to be able to ask people for tips on extending baby’s naps, and I honestly just wanted friends!
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USE FACEBOOK
So…. I put myself out there. This is literally the post I put in a facebook group:
We just moved to _____ in January and I have a 4 month old. I’d love to make friends in the areas and have signed up for some book clubs and a “mom’s club” chapter. We go to church, but there are only two babies one year or younger (and one is my baby 😂).
I’m a SAHM. I love reading, have a lifetime gym membership, love animals, cooking etc. I’m pretty open minded. I taught ESL and Special Education for a few years.
Do any of y’all do meet ups? I’d love to make some more friends 🙂.
I was SHOCKED, but I received 37 comments on my facebook thread with people reaching out to be friends with me, inviting me to mama groups, and then messages as well telling me to come join them doing ___ or ___. I received so many messages that I actually just resigned to do one to two groups a day to see where I fit in and what I liked.
As someone who has definitely had social anxiety in the past, the hard part came next, I had to actually go to aforementioned groups haha! I was intimidated, but every group I went to was SO nice. I kept showing up and showing up. I love the groups I go to, I love the people I have met, and I’ve really enjoyed doing things with people one on one too. My baby is over seven months now and I still go to these groups several times a week.
DOWNLOAD SOME APPS
I downloaded meetup as well as this app called Peanut; Peanut is an app like Tindr, but for SAHMs. The concept totally weirded me out at first, but I have met several people from the app (and they’re nice). I ended up clicking with so many people at the groups I mentioned above though that I ended up just deleting the app. However, I’m glad I put myself out there.
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NURTURE MY OWN HOBBIES
It was really important for me to maintain a part of my identity when becoming a parent. I knew that it would be challenging since we don’t have family nearby, but we just decided to work around it in a different way. What you like might be completely different than what I like… maybe you want a blow out every once in a while or a trip to get your nails done. Those aren’t super high priorities for me, but it is important that you just keep showing up for yourself!
GYM MEMBERSHIP
Getting a gym membership helped me fulfill a huge self-care need I was realizing I had. I wanted some alone time, I wanted to be able to shower as long as I wanted without sacrificing night time sleep, and until I made friends here the ladies at the gym daycare were super nice (I still talk to them regularly and I love how they love on my baby!).
I’ve tried out two different yoga classes, a weight training class, a water aerobics class, and my big workout for a long time was running laps in the pool. I love using the hot tub because it has really helped with my inflammation.
Honestly, it has just been a great way for me to have two hours to myself everyday. Before I had a good schedule, I was at the gym six days a week. Now I usually go to the gym about three days a week.
Bonus: this helps Devin get two hours out of the house or to himself every week without baby and me too. He likes to go watch movies.
READING
I’ve always loved reading and learning in general… it has always been my happy place and escape. However, it wasn’t particularly fitting my season of life and I was starting to feel deprived. I had to get kind of creative in committing to learning because my normal library checkouts weren’t working; my book loans were getting returned before I could even start them… and then I would have to re-enter the wait list again. I decided to start exploring audio books while pushing her stroller on trails or on drives places.
I bought an audible subscription; you can buy your own here. Because I need longer to read books then what the library often allows, I also bought a kindle unlimited book subscription because it was cheaper than buying a new book every month; you can get your own subscription here. I no longer have either subscription, but I let myself buy a book once a month.
OUTSOURCE WHAT YOU CAN
When E was really little and we were still trying to figure out a regular schedule, we outsourced some things to help out until I was able to get our schedule to a good place.
- CLEANING
We asked around and a teenager at church came over and helped me do some deep cleaning and laundry folding about once a month. It was so helpful! Now that I have friends with younger babies than my own, I recommended her to other people. She was a great help! - GET A BABYSITTER
When Devin has traveled, I hired a babysitter so I could catch up on sleep and do something for myself. We’ve been lucky because we’re able to see how people are with her at church before we call someone and get recommendations. - GO ON DATES
We go on them! It means we have to get a babysitter, but not every date has to cost a lot of money. We also don’t go on as many now that she is sleep trained “out of the house”, but we make a point of having them in our house with take out and a good movie.
These photos were taken around three months ago. It is wild to think of how far I’ve come being a stay at home mom in a new city since then! I’ve made friends, I’ve enjoyed hobbies that I’ve always loved (although, they are not in the same quantity as before, that’s okay!), and we’re starting to get into a great routine as a family. I have been amazed at the sense of community I have built in this short time period and the genuine friendships I’ve made. Although it was intimidating for me to move to a new city being so pregnant, I’m really glad we made the leap of faith for our family!
