I have the very best group of best friends in the world. “Friends” doesn’t even cut it because they are really my family. If I could count on one hand 5 wishes for BB as she grows up, one would be that she finds a group of friends like I have. But, despite my pleading and desperation, none of them have babies yet! When I was pregnant, I didn’t understand how much I would need other friends who have babies. I thought, I would just bring my baby, along with my purse, to brunch or girls night or whatever it was that we were doing and things would stay exactly the same. And for the most part, they have. But, I did underestimate how much I would need a mom friend. Thank god, I found Meg. But, finding mom friends did not come easily for me. More on that later…

If there is one thing you cannot survive motherhood without, it is mom friends. Raising kids really does take a village, a village filled with other moms who have gone through the same thing you have gone through. I am not suggesting you abandon your lifelong friends who have been there through thick and thin, but you also need a tribe of other mamas who can help you get through those rough patches.

Here are 10 reasons you need mom friends:

(1) They just get it: the love, the exhaustion, the frustration, mom friends just get it.

(2) You pick up tips from them: when you hang out with other moms and their babies, you inevitably pick up tips. Just today, I was talking to a mom friend at the gym when she pulled a stroller out of her teeny tiny gym locker. It was literally a Mary Poppins moment as she unfolded this huge and amazing stroller. AND, it fits in the overhead luggage bin on the airplane. I promptly went to Nordstrom.com and ordered the BABYZEN YOYO. This will be a lifesaver for my first solo flight with BB next week.

(3) You operate on the same schedule, baby time: quite possibly the best thing about having mom friends, is having someone who understands baby time. They know that an invite over for “dinner” means 4pm so the babes can get home in time for bedtime. They understand that sometimes you have the very best intentions to meet up, but naps don’t go according to plan and you are forced to cancel. And they fully support your decision to crack into a bottle of wine at 4pm on a Tuesday.

(4) They also have baby on their brain 24/7: motherhood is consuming. No matter what you are doing, it is always and constantly on your mind. To avoid boring your childless friends with your 15th story of how cute your child is, find a mama friend who is equally consumed by how cute their tot is.

(5) They’re someone to vent to: we all have those days. The REALLY long days that seem like they will never end. I love my lifelong friends to death and I would not trade them for the world, but sometimes you just need to vent about your baby that seems to be possessed by the devil to another mama who will not judge you for calling your own child Satan.

(6) They understand mom guilt: the mom guilt struggle is real. When you’re working you feel like you should be with your baby. When your taking time for yourself, you feel like you should be with your baby. When you complain about a frustrating week with your baby, you instantly feel that mom guilt creeping up on you for complaining about your near perfect and insanely cute child. Mom friends have been there and felt that, too.

(7) They help you problem solve: don’t get me wrong, parenting books are great. I could not survive without them. But sometimes you need to talk through a real life problem with another real life mama going through the exact same thing.

(8) They’ve been that tired too: they understand what tired means. Until you have had a child, you do not know what tired is. Yes, non mamas have been jet-lagged, sleep deprived from working long hours, sleep deprived from law school or med school, but they have never experienced exhaustion like a mama has. Not even your spouse or significant other can relate to the level of exhaustion. They didn’t grow a human for 9 months, then push it out, then let it suck on your boob until it is raw.

(9) They respond appropriately when you tell them that you or your significant other have come down with the flu: and by respond appropriately, I mean react like it is the mother trucking disaster that it is. The flu and parenting should never meet.

(10) They provide much needed mama motivation: when BB was about 7-8 months old, we went through a rough nap patch. We were rocking her to sleep for every nap and my joints were literally aching from head to toe. I could not rock her to sleep for another nap but I also couldn’t handle the whole “cry-it-out” thing. I was over at Megs one day with the babes and it was James’ naptime. So Meg grabbed him, walked into the room, put him down in his crib and walked right back out. He fussed/cried for a little bit, she turned the volume down on the monitor and sat back and continued talking to me like it was no big deal. I needed to see another real life mom in action putting her child to sleep to understand that some fussing and a little crying is normal and ok. I also needed to see that she wasn’t a total basket case while James fussed in his crib. The next day was the first day of naptime bliss in the Geoffrion home, and we have had a perfect little napper ever since, all thanks to some mama motivation from Meg. For more mama motivation, see Meg’s POST today on www.megmcmillin.com!

Ok, you get it. You need mom friends. I understood I needed mom friends pretty quickly after BB was born, but I didn’t have any and I didn’t know how to find them. How do you find these mom friends? I read so many blog posts and articles about finding mom friends. They suggested going to mama and baby classes, to parks, or to join Facebook groups. Ok, maybe that works for some people, but I am not very outgoing and I suffer from resting bitch face, so I have been told I am hard to approach.

After about 6 months of going to classes, parks, new mom meet ups, I still did not have a really good mom friend. I had some moms I had exchanged numbers with or who I met up with at the park, but no one I really clicked with. The reality is, just because you have one thing in common, motherhood, does not mean you are going to have anything else in common. So, here is the #1 and most effective way to make mom friends:

BLIND DATES. Yep, blind dates with other moms. Meg and I met on a blind date and instantly hit it off. Ask your friends, family, and co-workers if they know any other moms with children around the same age as yours who they think you would get along with. And guess what, mom dates are nowhere near as awkward as real blind dates because you instantly have something to bond over, your children. Maybe you both went through the adoption process or both had a c-sections or both have terrible sleepers. There is SOME common ground there. If I can find mom friends, resting bitch face and all, so can you!