5 Tips to Connect With Your Girlfriends

No one can deny that Mom life is a BUSY one and it’s often hard to make time to connect with your girlfriends. Regardless of the age of your children, you’re always running from one thing to the next. There are doctor’s appointments and diaper changes. School drop-offs and practice pick-ups. College move-ins and graduations. You get it, once the path of parenthood starts to unfold, it doesn’t exactly slow down as we hit milestones and mile-markers.

With so much competing for a chance to be on our calendars, it can feel impossible to even consider squeezing in a catch-up session with our girlfriends, but I promise you it’s possible.

In honor of National Girlfriends’ Day (August 1), here are five tips to actually connect with your girlfriends while in the trenches of parenting.

Practice Regular Traditions

From monthly phone dates to annual trips, there are things you can build into your schedule that automatically include and allow you to connect with your girlfriends.

Do these traditions look the same every time? No. Sometimes that “phone date” is just a text saying Hey, rain check. Sometimes the annual trip together is just a brief weekend, but the touch point is there.

And these traditions are a foundation on which we can continue to build a connection that will withstand all the ebbs and flows of life.

Involve your Families

While girls’ nights and getaways are a blast, they aren’t always feasible or accessible depending on the season of life we’re in and the level of support around us.

So, if you can’t get away for some solo time with your girlfriends, include your significant others and kids in your plans.

Planning to go to a kid-friendly festival? Give them a heads up so they can tag along, too! Checking out the new pumpkin patch? Ask your girl if her and her crew can come, too!

For friends who live out of town, meet halfway for a fun family experience somewhere. FaceTime each other while watching a movie or show together. Anything to reinforce that you actively want them in not just your life but your children’s lives, too. Bonus points if your kiddos and significant others end up becoming friends, too!

And for your single, kid-free friends, find activities that everyone will enjoy doing together! Don’t make it just about your children/family. Help them with something they’re needing to do. Run errands together. Go for a walk. Your friends love you and by proxy those who are important to you, so just set a date and make it happen! You’ll both find what works best the more you try.

Buy Tickets

We’ve all been there. The coffee date that gets canceled last-minute because someone is sick. The happy hour that never happens because somewhere along the way someone forgot to text back and confirm if the time worked for them. The dinner that’s been rescheduled 50 times. When it’s not something that’s concrete on the calendar, it’s a lot easier for it to fall off the radar and never happen.

One way I’ve found to ensure this doesn’t happen is to buy tickets to activities and events to do with my girlfriends to ensure we actually see each other when we say we will. When money is involved and we know WELL in advance something is happening (with or without our families) it’s just easier to hold ourselves to it and follow through. Plus, it’s so fun having something to look forward to and we always build around the activity.

If we’re planning to go to a concert, we automatically know to build in dinner and/or drinks beforehand. Hitting a farmer’s market together, let’s stop for brunch on the way. Yay for more quality time together!

Plan Your Next Adventure While Enjoying Your Current One

While hanging out with certain girlfriends, I love to throw out a couple of future dates for our next time together while we’re still in the midst of our current adventure.

This tactic is especially helpful for those with fuller schedules, as we can quickly scan calendars together and agree on a handful of options to try for next time.

This way, the next time we pick up the phone to schedule something, we won’t be starting from scratch. Of course, life happens and this is far from a fail-safe, but it keeps quality time top of mind and lightens the mental load in the moment because you’ve already thought about it a bit before.

Be Flexible

Meet your girlfriends with grace and understanding. Whether they’re with you in the trenches of motherhood or not, they’re all just trying their best to make it in this crazy, bonkers world of ours. Sometimes life just lifes really hard and we aren’t able to connect as regularly for whatever reason.

Instead of meeting the disconnection with anger or frustration, turn toward it with a willingness to bend and be flexible.

Had a wine night planned but no one can ge out of the house? Settle for blowing up each other’s phones with ridiculous gifs or memes, photos and voice memos.

As hard as it may be to NOT take it personally, there’s a good chance whatever is keeping your friend from seeing you as regularly as you like has nothing at all to do with you, so be the safe, judgment-free space they can turn to when they’re ready and able. Be the friend you would need (or have needed) when in similar seasons of disconnect.You both deserve it.

What are ways you’ve found to connect with your girlfriends during a busy season in life?