AIBU to blame being a mum on this? Or is it just being older?

[hup12]

Since I had DS (2) I have gone from being really witty, quick thinking and engaging in conversations (with people of all ages), someone who could read a book quickly and take it in just as fast, someone who had confidence and self assurance… to this person I now don’t recognise. I don’t seem to have any wit at all, I’m certainly not quick and ‘on it’ in conversations anymore. People used to regularly comment that I was funny/ good fun and while I know it’s not a big thing it was part of who I was.

I feel like I’m only just keeping up mentally, nowhere near how I used to be.

Is this just getting old? Being a mum? Will I ever get that part of me back?

I feel the same. Sometimes feel little glimmer of myself again now. Mainly because my kids are 5 and 2 and I'm thinking about what I wear, making time to do things for me, silly things like putting jewellery on. Actually feeling a little like the old me.

But they say it takes 7 years for our brains to get back to anything normal after a baby... By then I'll have the joys of peri menopause so I'm assuming I'll never get back 😂😂😢

How well can you sleep at night?

I think I was in post natal shock for a few years after having babies. I got my sharpness back eventually.

I don’t think I really started to get past the brain fog and feel ‘myself’ again until well past my youngest’s 3rd birthday. Sleep was part of it (he didn’t sleep through until 3) but it wasn’t just that. It’s the absolute relentlessness of seeing to everyone else’s needs at all times and having very little left in the tank for anything else. IME it does pass though!

Sleep is a big thing here. I don't think I felt mentally back to normal until my youngest was 3yo, but perhaps this is because mine weren't great sleepers.

these replies are depressing! I’ve got a long time to go by the sounds of it 😭

Also, I am sleeping so can’t even blame it on that!!!