Making friends can be hard but making mom friends might as well be as difficult as finding that elusive needle in a haystack.
It's an experience Annalee Ford, a mom of two, knows firsthand and one that inspired a recent social media post.
"I have a theory about mom friends and I need to know if everyone else feels the same way," Ford began in an April 3 Instagram reel. "Before I had kids, I had no idea how hard it was gonna be to make mom friends. Honestly, I assumed I would just take my kids to the park, find another mom there, bada bing, bada boom -- best friends."
Ford, a civil engineer and content creator, said when she first had kids several years ago, she didn't have any friends who had children and who could directly relate to her new experiences, so she went online to find a community of parents she could interact with.
"[I] wanted to connect to other moms who were going through the same thing that I was going through and that's when I would like really pour my heart into Instagram and TikTok because it is a nice way to meet other people," the 32-year-old told "Good Morning America."
MORE: How 2 moms became friends to the benefit of their kidsNow, she has an interesting theory about finding those mom friends who you instantly engage with -- or the "unicorns," as she calls them
"What I found trying to make mom friends in life after having babies is that there's three main categories that I, at least in my brain, categorize people that I meet into, like a trifecta Venn diagram," Ford explained.
In one circle, she said, you'll find the people you "naturally get along with," and in an overlapping circle, you'll find other moms and parents who "have the same babies as you … same age, general age," while in the final third circle, you'll find those two categories of people who also happen to be in the same physical location as you, according to Ford.
After sharing her perspective, Ford said social media users even joked there was a fourth category that was missing.
"One thing that I thought was funny, that a lot of people commented there should be a fourth circle -- that is if your spouses get along," she added.
So what does Ford recommend when it comes to starting and maintaining a cherished mom friendship?
Ford's first piece of advice to other moms is to seek community online. But as much as she finds online friendships valuable, she also encourages in-person relationships whenever they're possible.
MORE: Author writes poignant post on how friendships change in your 30s and 40s"I think naturally, as your kids get older, maybe they're going to daycare or preschool or maybe you start doing soccer on the weekends and then that's how I'm starting to meet some people in my neighborhood, real-life moms that I can go get a coffee with, which feels really good," she said.
Ford points out the process of making mom friends can be a "slow burn" and not as easy as she once thought, but even though the success rate may not be high, the payout can be worth the effort.
"With how busy everyone is with work and kids and life, we don't need 100 friends anyways, so you shoot for 10 people. If you can maybe make two friends, 20% is not bad. It's pretty good," Ford said.
