Your nine months of pregnancy can be a magical mystery tour of surprise and delight, but if your friends aren’t on the same trip, who do you swap stories with? If you are the only one pregnant in your peer group these nine months can seem like a long and lonely haul.
These days though we are lucky to have the internet at our finger tips and new friends are just a few clicks away. I’ve had a look at some of what is on offer for you throughout your pregnancy.
The beauty of NCT is it is local to your area and run by parents who’ve been there and done it all before you. You can find the NCT on line and then if you would rather meet someone face to face, you can go and along to one of their various events from nearly new sales to courses that you can join to meet like minded parents and help you throughout your pregnancy and prepare for your birth.
If you are looking for a bit of reassurance and confirmation that you are not the only one in your position, there are plenty of chat rooms for you to surf through. I’ve had a look over a number of them and found Net Mums to have the most easy to navigate, with conversations on pretty much every topic you can think of going on about pregnancy and more. You just need to sign in and give yourself an on line alias to join the conversation.
Emma’s Diary’s landing page is rather like a magazine with plenty of interesting articles for you to choose from about pregnancy and beyond. If you are feeling lucky, they also host a range of competitions and there are freebies for you to sign up to. The forum also includes a section for you to find online friends in your region, giving you the option to meet up in person if you choose to.
Bounty also offers a similar range to Emma’s Diary, with information, competitions, offers and a forum. The greatest difference I found here is that the forum is not visible to non members, so if you are a particularly private person, this may be the chat room option for you as you find cyber friends to chat about pregnancy with.
Mumsnet boast’s that it is created by parents for parents and they really take their moto seriously. Within their forum is a guest blog section where parents have published posts on a whole range of issues that they are dealing with. A great opportunity to air their issues in more detail and start a conversation.
The secret, as with anything is to get involved. Start following a few threads that spark your interest and then be daring and say hello. Remember everyone is in the same boat so no one is going to bite! So happy surfing and good luck making bump friends!
Eleanor x
PS. I’m a maternity, newborn and baby photography specialist with a gorgeous studio in Lancaster, Lancashire. Hop over to my website and take a look at what I do, or follow me on Facebook to see all the current work we are creating. Enjoy!
