To think having a baby has made me stupid

[CluelessNewMama]

Since giving birth 3 months ago my brain has just gradually turned to mush. I used to think of myself as intelligent and pretty quick witted. Today somebody asked me my age and I genuinely didn’t know, I had to phone my mum. I got my daughters birthday wrong on her passport application. I can’t think of the words for anything. I can barely form a sentence, it took me 15 minutes to type this. I feel like my IQ has genuinely plummeted. Is this reversible or should I prepare for a lifetime of stupidity?

Baby brain is really and in my experience it doesn't get any better. I used to have a really good memory, it was one thing I was actually good at, now I have 2 kids, I can barely remember my own name, let alone get theirs right 🤦‍♀️. I think it stems from the fact that now you have so many things to think about and remember to do with the DC that nothing else sticks.
I have to remember who's at school, who's at playgroup, who's at work and when, who has swimming lessons on what day, rainbows, homework, birthdays, christmas, after school clubs, finances, food shopping, who needs new clothes and on and on and on 🙈.

I reckon it’s sleep deprivation. I felt like this for a while after DS was born, I went to lick my DD’s face goodnight instead of kissing it one night . He’s ten months old now and I feel like myself again.

My friend was telling me that they did this experiment in which they gave people who were genuinely destitute a load of money - as in life-changing amounts- and it improved their IQ. They reckoned it was because they were so occupied with figuring out how to survive that it was taking up a lot of their cognitive ability. I reckon it could be something similar. As in you spend so much of your mental facilities looking after a kid, coupled with very poor sleep and you become a bit thick.

Maybe someone knows the study. Or my friend was talking nonsense.

I used to start a sentence and not finish it, forget words etc...it's happening again now I'm peri menopausal

Annoyingly I'd just got my brain back after having DS and then peri kicked in and I'm incoherent again.

Glad I’m not the only one who has got my own baby’s name wrong! And ironically, my mistake was also to refer to him as Jack KatnissK. It wasn’t even on our shortlist!

I feel I’m only just starting to regain a fraction of my former quick witted humour and my memory is getting better too.

It’s a huge change having a baby, your brain rewires in certain ways, you’re sleep deprived and even if you’re lucky and have a good sleeper/calm baby, your attention is so focused on this little life you have to protect and care for that it’s hard to switch off and think about other things.

When my twins came home from NICU I could recite in detail all of the information I had been given regarding their needs, schedules, medications and what have you, but to this day I cannot easily recall from memory what they weighed, what time they were born, how premature they were etc. with exact figures.

As for my baby brain exploits I managed to forget my own name, DOB on more than one occasion. I often looked for an item I was already holding. I called our cats by the wrong names frequently. Lost a lot of my vocabulary (favourite one was when I couldn’t remember the word water when DH asked if I wanted a drink so just replied with Tap). Have called my DS by one of the cats names and referred to said cat with DS’s name on too many occasions.

Tripped over any none existent obstacle in my house. Put DH’s house keys in the freezer and a bag of frozen sausages on his side table (he still laughs about that one).

I still have a habit of asking him if he wants anything whilst I’m up and forgetting to get it for him, best record was forgetting to bring his charger downstairs six times in a row - he didn’t mention anything he just counted how many times I’d go upstairs for the express purpose of getting it and forget it!

I have found improvement now the twins are toddlers and I’ve started doing some online courses via OU. Plus DH takes over primary care whenever he can in the evenings/at weekends allowing me to do my own thing. Even if that’s just binge watching a show on Netflix 😂