The Baby Brain Phenomenon

A phenomena that belongs only to mothers and one in which scientists are unanimous that there is no scientific evidence that it even exists.

I’m the mum of two beautiful boys and for the most part, my experience of baby brain was pretty uneventful………..like driving somewhere and forgetting where I was going, or finding myself walking through the house only to realise I had no idea what I had been doing or what I was going to do.

Or putting the butter in the cupboard and the bread in the fridge.

Then there was the time that I was brushing my teeth. About halfway through I just had “a feeling”…………I looked and checked and sure enough, I wasn’t using my toothbrush, but my husband’s!

The baby brian phenomenon is such a common symptom, someone has released a book of funny stories called Baby Brain: You couldn’t make it up if you tried.

Take these examples:

The mum who was asked what her four-week old baby’s name was and couldn’t remember……..for a few minutes!!

The woman who got home, came inside, shut the door,  and started pointing the car keys at the door, pressing the central locking button waiting for the door to beep and lock!

The woman who called her husband on her mobile phone in a panic that she had lost her phone!

The woman who, while holidaying overseas, packed her bags and went to check out at reception, only to find she was booked to stay for another night!

The mum who walked into her newborn’s nursery smelling a dirty nappy, then spending five minutes turning the room upside down looking for it, before realising she had not checked the baby!

The mum who was pregnant with her second baby and catching a bus. On exiting the bus, she turned to wait for her dawdling three-year-old. When he didn’t appear, she began counting to three……….until the bus driver told her she had got on the bus alone……….she remembered her son was at daycare!

The mum who admitted to taking the home phone with her instead of her mobile!

But baby brain is not just about “silly” mums doing crazy stuff, it can get also be dangerous.

One day I tried to drive ON THE WRONG SIDE of a traffic island after crossing an intersection. I don’t know what I was thinking or what I thought I was doing, I was just on auto pilot.  Thankfully I was able to realise what I was doing and correct myself before anything serious happened, but it was a shock.

And for the very unfortunate of us, sometimes the baby brain doesn’t go away, developing into “mummy brain”.  I am lucky and seem to have escaped that one. For the most part anyway, lol.

I’d love you to share your baby brain stories with me below.