My brain is a constant loop of “baby baby baby”

I’m 1 week postpartum and my brain is apparently not capable of thinking about anything that isn’t baby-related.

My husband keeps trying to have conversations with me that are, for example, political and it feels like listening to someone scratch a chalkboard. As if my brain is trying to do a specific task and someone is distracting it. I feel like I can’t focus or comprehend things the way I used to.

How long does this last?

My baby is now 4 months and I’m so surprised by how much more space there is in my brain for non-baby related stuff! In those first few weeks particularly it felt as though I’d never have “normal” thoughts again, but as things become more routine and the “novelty” kind of wears off you’ll definitely start to think and feel more like yourself! Obviously I’m still thinking about my daughter all day every day, but in a less all consuming way!

1 week?! Oh man, I was in a fog still. So sleep deprived and sore and just exhausted. Can’t imagine trying to have a conversation deeper than needs.

It will last until you are no longer 100% exhausted. So if husband wants to talk then he can take over more things :wink:

I’m 3 weeks postpartum and I feel like I can converse if the baby is taken care of. If he’s asleep, I can get back to mostly my old self. If he’s awake, there’s not much else I can focus on. But I think that’s probably normal!

This is called maternal preoccupation. Not only is it normal but it’s really healthy for both the mom and baby. It’s evolutionarily conditioned to help create bonds between mom and baby, and help the mom understand the baby’s needs.

I think our fast-paced, overstimulated society has actively suppressed this very necessary biological urge. I’m not sure why. But maybe because it’s something only mothers are able to experience, so people don’t talk about it or validate it as much as they should.

@Winter
Coming here to make this exact comment!!

2 weeks IMO is when baby thoughts were 100% of my brain. You start to get in a rhythm and your brain can offload a lot of the stuff mentally. At 5 weeks PP, I’m still maybe 50-80% baby thoughts now, but my anxiety has dropped a lot. I suspect it varies for everyone and for every situation, but the first 2 weeks were the worst.

At 1 week I didn’t have the capacity to think about anything else. I was in survival mode. This lasted for a little while, but the new born phase is ROUGH. Like you are fighting for your life.

For me till 5 months. But I had a lot of stress around feeding so until It got sorted I was constantly thinking about his next feed, If he was getting enough and putting on weight etc. My sister also threw me a surprise 30th birthday in this time and I couldn’t enjoy it :confused:

I’m 7 weeks PP and I think around 4 weeks I was interested in talking or reading about things other than baby life. But my attention span is still pretty short and if my LO is fussing there is no way I’m able to carry on a conversation or focus on anything else.

The sleep deprivation definitely adds to it, but our brains do undergo a change during pregnancy and after birth so this “mommy brain” thing is real!

My husband is also a talker and one thing that has helped is having him be our baby researcher. If I have a question about something I’ll ask him to research it and then he gets to talk my ear off about what he discovered :joy:.

Give yourself time. Baby is priority and the wonky sleep schedule and rush of hormones does not help anything. One year pp and I feel mostly back to normal but I can be mid-match in a video game and find myself thinking “I hope baby is okay” while she is sleeping in the next room.

For me, I didn’t start being able to handle other things until I started getting 4 hour stretches of sleep reliably. My anxiety started calming down about then too.

I’m 8 months pp and I still think like this but it got better about 12 weeks pp.

I’m 7 weeks pp and I still can’t focus on regular podcasts and books but if I’m reading or listening to something about babies, I soak it up like a sponge. It’s sad because every time a new episode of my fav podcasts drops, I happily start it, only to realize 30 minutes later that I haven’t been listening at all!

I’m 2 weeks pp. I have good days and bad days, and usually the mornings are better than the evenings.

A couple days ago, it was late afternoon and we asked the grandparents to watch bubba for an hour so we could nap. I ended up waking up every five minutes, because in my sleep I was feeding her, burping her, changing her etc. My partner suggested I put on music or TV, but no matter what, every time I closed my eyes I was taking care of her.

Some days I can switch off, some days I can’t, but it’s still early days.

At least 2 weeks for me, probably closer to a month.

For me it was about a month until I started being able to care at all about anything else.

It lasts awhile but it’s by design if that makes you feel better… it will shift until only every other word is “baby” :wink:.

Shannon said:
It lasts awhile but it’s by design if that makes you feel better… it will shift until only every other word is “baby” :wink:.

Hahahaha

However long it takes for you to feel like you’re settled into a routine, I think. Once your nervous system is convinced that your baby is safe, it settles down a bit.

But honestly, my son is 2 and he’s the last thing I think of before I fall asleep and the first thing I think of when my brain comes online in the morning. Things on TV remind me of the funny things he does, and I often pause conversations about something else to tell my husband something cool my son did that day. I don’t think it ever completely goes away.