No one ever tells you about the side effects of motherhood, and I'm not talking about physical ones (those deserve a post of their own!). You find yourself doing the most bizarre things, developing special powers and weird habits.

Here are a few that I've personally experienced:

You hear your child crying as soon as you turn on the shower

99% of the time, your child is not crying. I'm not saying that all mum's have totally lost their minds. I read up on it a bit and apparently it's a hormonal/maternal instinct thing where mothers need to know their babies are ok at all times.

You develop cat like reflexes

Mums develop the ability to spot a child falling off a chair from the other side of the room and leap to grab them before they fall. They also do this when they see a cup of juice about to fall out of a little ones hand or an ice cream about to topple onto the carpet.

You think it's ok to use saliva as a cleanser

Before having kids I vowed that I would never turn into the type of mum that does this. Yet here I am! Most of the time I have baby wipes in my bag but end up using spit anyway. Seriously it's something I can't control! It must be an animal instinct. Hey if cat spit is good enough for kittens, my spit is good enough for my kids. It's when you use your own spit to clean an (unrelated!) grown up's face that you might have a problem.

You turn multi-tasking into a fine art

Everyone knows that all women are naturally good multi-taskers. However, once you have kids you have to juggle a lot on a daily basis so you have to step it up and multi-multi-task! It gets a bit much sometimes though and you do end up not enjoying the present as much as you should. I once, without realising it, made a shopping list in my head while reading my kids a bed time story!

You can read your child's temperature by kissing their forehead

I now only use a thermometer only to prove to non-believers (my husband!) that I'm right!

You scan a room for sharp objects as soon as you enter it

Apologies if you ever see my walk into a room and my eyes are darting around like a madwoman. Know that my mind is working like a computer, scanning for sharp objects, hot drinks on table edges, breakable vases etc, and medication left lying around (for some reason my parents, who have 5 grandchildren, always have all of these objects on a low level table every time we go round!). I then use my cat like reflexes to remove these objects before my kids get to them.

You start talking to yourself

Well it starts off by narrating everything to your little one as you're going about your business. But then you find going on a (rare) shopping trip without your child and saying in a really loud baby-ish voice "shall we go and get some nap-naps now?". Cue weird looks from everyone within earshot!

If there are any that you think I've missed, or weird habits that dads develop, then let me know!

MummyImperfect x