So my baby is now 9 months and a few weeks ago we decided to move him to his own room even though he is still not sleeping through. My husband was then able to take his rightful place back in our bedroom.

When we moved my older son downstairs to his own room I cried my eyes out. This time I realised it was time because he had outgrown the crib –literally. -Although the thought of running up and downstairs all night did not fill me with joy (and still doesn’t several weeks later when we are now both being woken up!).

Also I really miss feeding him from the comfort of my bedroom. Not just as a bonding experience with my baby but also because it was a special time for me. You see for me waking in the night has been a guilty pleasure because it gave me time to watch a range of rubbish TV some of which is too embarrassing to share (but let’s just say a well -known posh constructed reality TV series was involved –  (oh the shame!) – as well as spin offs from The Bake Off and The Apprentice – Well I did say rubbish  TV!– Alongside this I also got to watch lots of documentaries and thanks to the generosity of sharing from The 3 Principles community lots of interviews and talks from them as well. Which led me to discover many inspiring new teachers along the way. This really helped me deepen my understanding. – ( So thank you 3 Principles Community*).

With my second baby I have generally felt a lot less tired and exhausted than with my first child and this got me curious. My first baby I also enjoyed the rubbish TV at night but the feelings of lack of sleep I felt at the time really weighed me down and affected my judgements. This time it feels different. When I reflect on this this is what I see. – When you have interrupted sleep sometimes you feel absolutely fine and function perfectly, sometimes you feel physically tired and sometimes you can feel emotionally tired.  – The difference this time round is that I am OK with this and don’t fight it and let it wash over me and it passes. But I think there is another major difference I see now compared to last time.

With my first baby I had a lot of thinking about everything from guilty feelings and thinking over not being able to breastfeed, to obsessing about cleanliness of bottles and toys etc to being upset that I couldn’t contribute to the household in ways that I used to. I innocently obsessed over all this thinking and I now see that this is what weighed me down and not the lack of sleep. I’m not saying lack of sleep doesn’t have an effect but it comes and goes and I’m generally able to function a lot better than I did with my first baby. –I am for example able to find enough brain cells to write this blog and to have work conversations, something I couldn’t have done first time round because my head felt a lot of the time like it was full of cotton wool and I had very little clarity.

I took all that thinking seriously until I was able to make peace with myself and come to the realisation that none of it was real. – Until then it stuck around and weighed me down, especially when I was feeling down.  I now see that the tiredness just helped to fuel the fire and make all the negative thoughts I had more compelling.

If you are suffering from similar thinking about anything in your life baby related or not I wish I could wave a magic wand for you but I can’t. All I can do is point you in the direction of seeing life as inside-out experience. I.E  -That your experience of life comes from within not from your circumstances, and encourage you not beat yourself up when your thinking gets the better of you. Thinking about thinking just leads to heavier and heavier thinking. The less you weigh it down with more thinking the quicker it floats away.

* Sites I recommend seeing 3 Principles Videos on are: 3PCG , Three Principles Movies and Tikun

If what I’ve written sparks your interest you’d like to find out how more me about how I can support you. Click here or get in contact below.

If you or anyone you know have recently had a baby and want a chance to let off steam and get support from other mums as well as learn something that will help them deal with life with a baby then join me for our next NapChat on Thursday 17 September. To find out more click here.