Why I Make Time for a Mom Group (Even When It Eats Half My Workday)

My mom group lands in the middle of a workday. And each time it rolls around, there's a part of me that looks at my calendar and thinks about everything else I could be doing with those hours.

Sure, it's only an hour or two. But by the time I get myself and the baby ready, there and back, feed him, and get my brain back into work mode, it can eat up a decent chunk of my workday. Half, usually.

And because I work for myself, I’m very aware of what that means. Those are hours I could spend on client work, my own business, this blog, admin, or one of the approximately 9000 things I might feel behind on. But despite all of that, I still go.

Working from home changed for me after having a baby, and meeting regularly with a local mom group has become something I really value.

In this article, I’m sharing what I get from going and why I think it can be worth carving out the time even when your days are already packed.

Working from home changed after I had a baby

I’d already been running my business from home for years before I became a mom, so being home all day wasn’t exactly new territory. I loved it. I had my routines and my systems pretty dialed in, and the quiet was usually a benefit. I could get a lot done without office distractions, and when I wanted to see people, I could just...go see people.

But boy did that change after my son was born.

Home doesn’t feel the same. There can be an impressive amount going on in one day while my actual adult interaction remains pretty limited. I can work, take care of the baby, clean something, make food, answer emails, deal with naps and feeds, and realize I haven’t had a proper conversation with another adult since my partner left that morning.

Work gives me some interaction, of course. But a client call about content strategy is still a client call about content strategy. It doesn’t really replace having people in your life who you can just talk to without an agenda or a deliverable attached.

Before having a baby, I didn’t have to deliberately schedule that kind of contact very often. It happened around the rest of my life. Now, if I don’t make some effort to get out of the house and see people, it’s pretty easy for several days to pass without much happening beyond home, work, baby, repeat.

What I get from meeting other moms

I like talking to other moms because there are certain things I don’t have to explain first.

If I mention that the baby has suddenly started waking up earlier, nobody needs a ten-minute explanation of why that has somehow managed to screw with the rest of my day. If I’m trying to figure out how to get more work done, I’m talking to people who understand that uncomfortable pull between wanting to spend time with your baby and wanting to spend time on your career.

There’s also a lot of practical information that gets passed around when you spend time with other local moms. You hear about activities, childcare, places that are actually easy to visit with a baby, things worth buying and things absolutely not worth buying.

It’s the kind of information you can find yourself, but I’d much rather hear “we tried that and it was great” than spend another evening opening seventeen tabs.

But I don’t particularly want every conversation I have with another woman to be about babies either.

That’s something I’ve appreciated about getting to know the same moms over time. Eventually you know more about each other than how old your babies are and whether they’re sleeping. People have careers they’re figuring out, trips they want to take, annoying things happening in their families, opinions, hobbies, plans and entire lives that didn’t disappear when they had a child.

Becoming a mom takes up a huge amount of mental and physical space, particularly in the beginning, and it would be very easy for motherhood to become the only thing I talked about. I like having a group where we can talk about the babies (obviously, they are a pretty major part of why we’re all there!), but they don’t have to be the only interesting thing about us.

There’s also research that helps explain why this kind of connection can feel so valuable. A 2026 review published in BMC Psychiatry looked at loneliness and social support during pregnancy and the first year after having a baby, and found that loneliness and low social support are linked with poorer mental health during this time.

That doesn’t mean joining a mom group is some kind of cure-all. But when so much of your day can be spent at home with a baby, having people you can talk to, see regularly, and build relationships with can make a real difference.

The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists also recommends building a postpartum support network that can include friends, family, neighbors, and healthcare professionals.

For me, a local mom group has simply become one part of that. Sometimes what I need is a couple of hours out of the house with people I enjoy being around, talking about babies, work, or whatever else happens to come up that week.

The value of seeing the same people regularly

I’ve tried various baby activities and meet-ups, and there’s a big difference between being around other parents once and seeing the same people repeatedly.

One-off events can feel a little like networking, except everyone has a stroller and somebody is probably covered in spit-up.

You do the standard introductions. How old is your baby? Where do you live? Is this your first? Maybe you have a nice conversation, and maybe there’s a decent chance you never see that person again.

When the group is recurring, you eventually get past all of that. Someone remembers that you were dealing with a horrible week of sleep. You remember that somebody was going back to work or looking at daycare options. Conversations continue instead of resetting every time you walk into the room.

There’s actually a word for part of this: propinquity. It refers to the way closeness and repeated contact can make relationships more likely to develop. And I think I was already missing that working from home.

When you work in an office, you can get to know people almost accidentally. You see the same coworkers in the kitchen. You talk before a meeting starts. You end up walking somewhere together. Nobody has to organize an official friendship activity.

Working from home removes most of that, and having a baby made my world even smaller. A regular mom group gives me a place where I know I’ll see familiar faces without having to individually arrange plans with six different people. Considering how much coordination even basic plans seem to require with babies involved, I appreciate that more than I expected.

I also think the repetition takes some pressure off this whole idea of “finding your village.” I see that phrase constantly in motherhood spaces, and I understand what people mean by it, but it makes forming relationships sound much more straightforward than it usually is. You don’t walk into a baby group and immediately acquire a perfectly coordinated support network.

You meet people. Then you see them again. Eventually you know them a little better.

The work-time tradeoff is real

This is the part I don’t want to gloss over, because I think motherhood advice has a tendency to suggest adding things to your schedule without acknowledging that something else has to move.

Join a group! Take a baby class! Meet a friend for coffee! Exercise! Get outside every day! Don't neglect your partner! Awwww and don't forget to make time for yourself, mama! 😘

When I go to my mom group, the time does come from somewhere. Sometimes that means I get less work done that day. Something moves to another day, or my available work hours for the week simply shrink.

There isn’t a nice productivity lesson hiding inside here. I may come home from the mama meetup having had a really good morning and still be mildly annoyed that I now have three hours less to finish something. Both things can be true at the same time.

And when you freelance or run a business, there's noticeable tension in that tradeoff because time and money are connected in a pretty direct way. I know roughly what I can accomplish in a focused morning. Giving one up is different from disappearing from an office for a long lunch and still collecting the same paycheck at the end of the month.

That’s okay, but it does mean I’ve become much more selective about what I put on my calendar. I’m not the sort to fill every open space with activities because getting out of the house is supposedly good for me. I would lose my mind. I need work time, I like work, and maintaining my career matters to me.

But this is one thing I keep making room for because, without a doubt, it’s worth it. I’d rather lose a few work hours and build real relationships with women in my community than protect every possible hour for productivity.

How to find a mom group near you

Finding a group can take a little digging, especially because what you’re looking for may not actually be called a “mom group.”

I’d start by searching several versions of the same idea:

• Search your city or neighborhood plus terms like “mom group,” “new moms,” “new parents,” “baby group,” “parent and baby,” “postpartum group” or “mama café.” If you live somewhere where English isn’t the main language, try the same searches in the local language too.

  
  

• Check Meetup. It has parent and mom groups in many cities, although what’s available obviously depends a lot on where you live.

  
  

• Try Peanut. The app is specifically built around connecting women with other moms nearby, including moms with children at similar stages.

  
  

• Look at libraries, community centers and parent-and-baby activities. A weekly baby class or story time may not advertise itself as a social group, but if roughly the same people go every week, it can serve a similar purpose.

  
  

• Ask local healthcare providers. Midwives, pediatricians, lactation consultants and postpartum professionals often know about groups that are barely findable online.

  
  

• Check Facebook, WhatsApp and local neighborhood communities. Some of the most active local groups have terrible websites or no real public presence at all.

  
  

I’d also look at the logistics before committing to something simply because it sounds nice. How far away is it? Does it meet often enough that you’ll actually get to know anyone? Can you bring your baby at the age they are now? Is it something you can realistically fit into your life without resenting it?

And I’d give a promising group more than one visit if the first one is a little awkward. The first time I went to mine, I was pregnant, not showing yet, and someone called me “an imposter.” No joke. Well, I think(?) it was meant as a joke, but it made showing up a second time a bit hard to do. I’m glad I did, though.

Meeting a room full of strangers while simultaneously dealing with a baby is probably not the fairest possible test of anyone’s social skills.

And don’t show up expecting to leave with a new best friend. That could happen, sure, and that would be amazing. But there’s a lot of value in simply becoming familiar with people. They know your name, you know theirs, and over time you start learning all the other stuff too.

That’s what I’ve ended up loving about my group. I’m building actual friendships with women who live near me, and every time we meet, those relationships feel a little less new and a little more like part of my life.