The number of things you have to do explodes the second you bring twins home from the hospital. There’s no shortage of crying, exhaustion, messiness and dirty things. With so much to do, hanging with friends could be the last thing on your mind.

It’s hard enough to take a shower every day, where would you even find the time, energy and mental bandwidth to put on clothes, maybe makeup and go outside?

Maintain relationships after having children by taking initiative to spend time with friends, even when you’re busy with babies. Call friends to ask about their lives, ask your partner for help with children to create time and space to hang out or simplify hanging out by inviting friends to your home.

This article shares how to maintain (and even grow) your friendships while you’re in the early days of baby raising.

Why Friendships Change After a Baby

Your friends assume you’re busy.

After having twins, I noticed my usual friend group would go to great restaurants without me. When I asked why I didn’t get an invite, I often heard “oh, you just had a baby! I figured you’d be too busy!”

Friends will want to respect your family and give you space to recover without the pressure of hanging out.

If you’re ready to hang with friends, just tell them! I let my friends know what, contrary to popular belief, I I could use some girlfriend time. The invited started pouring back in slowly but surely and that year I was invited on a two-month trip to Italy with a girlfriend.

Your priorities change.

Your health, your babies’ health and the new composition of your family become top priority. Your lifestyle will have to adjust to having two new members of the family. If you’ve had to undergo a C-section, you’ll be in recovery for at least 6 weeks. Your friends will take a back seat, but you can still find time for friendship.

I found that even talking to friends on the phone became a struggle because the pain medication made me very tired in the early post-partum days and it took about two months before I felt like a real human adult that could take care of myself.

Spend time with friends in a way that feels good for you. Ask them to bring you a meal so you don’t have to spend what little energy you have on making dinner. Watch TV with them so you don’t have to move around too much.

Everyday baby busyness.

Twin babies really are needy. You’ll have two diapers to change and babies to feed every three hours in the beginning. Two little people that need love, attention and naptimes. And if you have older children, your day will be filled with family.

To make your friendships last after twins, acknowledge that your life has changed and ask for space when you need it and follow through on promises you make. You must tell friends you’ll call them back later without guilt and also call them back during naptimes or text those hang out dates the moment you get a chance.

How to Maintain Your Friendships

Call your friends to say “Hi!”

It’s easy to call friends when there’s some juicy drama, but many people don’t think to call friends when nothing is happening. Calling friends just to say “hi!” let’s them know that you’re thinking of them and opens the door for a genuine conversation to occur. Ask about their family, their parents, work and life outside of work. Getting to know your friends without requiring drinks or a field trip can lower the barrier to entry for maintaining relationships over time.

Overcome inertia and go outside.

The hardest thing about getting out of the house… is getting out of the house. You’ll have to get yourself dressed, either pack the babies up (which can take an hour) or find a sitter for them, and ignore your list of must-do household chores to hang out with friends. Just thinking about leaving the house can be tiring.

Get over the mental hurdle of leaving your house by taking one action at a time. Don’t worry about the process of getting out of the house and how many things you have to do. Set the date, put your clothes on, pack the baby bag, grab the twins and go.

Find activities you can do with twins.

Sometimes you’ll just have to take the babies will you events if you want to get out of the house. That means you’ll have to choose twin-friendly activities to do.

Generally, we stay away from public places like restaurants where a tiny twin tantrum can feel like a high stakes event. Where you can’t enjoy the meal, you can’t have a conversation and you worry about making loud noises in a quiet dimly lit area.

Here are a few friend-date ideas to hang out with your twins:

• Taking a walk on a paved trail
• Playing at a park
• Coffee or wine at a friend’s house
• Rooftop Barbecue
• Movie night (or watching trash reality TV)

Plan play dates with other parents.

Sometimes you just wanna hang out with people who get it. Hanging out with your friends who do not have children may feel high pressure because they haven’t experienced the diaper explosions, tiny human tantrums and tired-but-won’t-sleep cries.

Plan play dates with parents of similar-aged children. This is a happy medium where you kids are entertained with a new playmate and you get some much-needed adult conversation.

Invite people to your home.

Some days are harder than others to make it outside, especially if you’re a twin parent working from home with out a babysitter and your days are filled with juggling babies and work calls. At the end of a work day you just want to crash on the couch and watch reality TV shows. Luckily, that’s something you can do with friends.

If you don’t have the energy to go out and still want to maintain your relationships, invite your friends over to partake in a regular, low energy activity that you would’ve done anyway like watching TV, having dinner at home with your family or taking a walk around the neighborhood. These are all great ways to connect with friends without making catching up a huge ordeal.

Talk about something other than your kids.

Not gonna lie, parents can be exhausting to talk to because all some want to do is talk about their kids. What they’re kids ate, what the poop looked like, what stage they’re in, whether they’re sitting up, crawling, walking or not. If they’re “being” in some area or another, what foods they’re eating or not eating.

I know you love your children, but not everyone wants to hear about your them all day.

Ask your partner to watch the babies so you can go out.

Every once in a while friends will invite you to a birthday event, holiday party or (if your friends are adventurous) an international vacation. Your default reaction might be to look around at all the chores and immediately decline the request, telling your friends to enjoy themselves and send pics. But opportunities to hang with your friends are those big chances to make a deeper connection with them.

Ask your partner to watch the twins so you can hang out with friends instead of immediately declining all hangout invitations. Spending time with friends in unique ways or for their big life moments makes a huge difference in the quantity and depth of interactions you get to have with each other.

Say “Yes!” to requests to hang out.

One thing that you will get you eliminated from the friends invite list is constantly turning down invitations to hang out. While you don’t have to go to every birthday party, happy hour and mini golf invite, you want to say “yes” to hanging out every once in a while.

The grass grows where you water it and you do have to invest time and energy into your relationships if you want them to flourish.

Make future plans to hang out.

The first step to hanging out is creating the opportunity to hang out. That means calling or texting your friends no matter how busy you are and making those future plans to hang out. Once you have a hangout date on the calendar, you’re half way to a real in-person relationship-building connection.

Keep the plans you make.

While sick babies are completely understandable, your friends will get skeptical the second and third time you cancel plans. When you become the person that’s constantly cancelling plans you’ll also become the person that doesn’t get any invites to hang out.

Keep the plans you make by having a detailed calendar of events for your home that includes birthdays, holidays, any pre-planned family trips, work holidays, days off from school, pre-planned recurring activities, etc.

With a detailed calendar, you’ll be able to see when you’re super busy and when you’re light on activities. Schedule events when you’re light on activities to increase the chance that you have more energy to hang out with friends and lower the risk of conflicts getting in the way.

Assume the best will happen.

Sometimes the most difficult thing about leaving the house is that you are walking away from your children and leaving them in the care of someone else. You worry they’ll miss a diaper change or a feeding or that they won’t be able to handle a difficult situation with the twins.

Imagine every feeding happens on time and your baby’s bottom is squeaky clean the entire time. Trust that you’ve picked the perfect babysitter and that they’ll do a great job caring for your little ones. In fact, you’ve allowed your parents, husband or siblings to deepen their bond with your babies in a way you haven’t done before. This belief will relieve you of any guilt or worry while you’re enjoying your baby-free experience with friends.