PLEASE tell me if this ever happens to you. I thought with my first it was just a phenomenon, but now that I have had my second child and its happening with him at almost 6 months, I think its time for me to ask the moms. Gosh, I don’t even know how to phrase the question, so I’ll just tell you what’s happening.

This dates back to over 3 years ago when Jake was a baby. If I’m lying in bed awake (which is how I almost always am, I have major sleep issues) and I think of my children, either one, that child will wake up. Not think of them like reminiscing about my day, but if all of the sudden, an image of my child waking pops in my head, within minutes it will happen. I don’t EVER intentionally think about them waking. It just happens.

I’ll be reading, or done reading and just lying in the dark waiting for sleep to come when all of the sudden out of nowhere, I get an image of one of my children waking up. Every time it happens (now that I’m used to it after all these years) I instantly think “No. No no no. No no no no nonono!!!” and do everything possible to get that picture out. It’s always too late. Whichever child popped into my head inevitably wakes up. I can not STAND it.

Now I know this sounds insane. I’ve mentioned it to my husband before and he’s just either given me the “Okay my wife is crazy, I’ll smile and nod before she snaps” look or he’s simply told me to stop thinking about it, like I have control over it.

When it first started with Jake, I thought maybe I was already asleep and I was just dreaming it had happened, like it was really just a figment of my imagination. I started to take it more seriously when it started happening when I was really awake, like wide awake. Reading a book or talking to Ryan, my husband.

Eventually, with Jake, I SOMEHOW would manage to almost “think” him back to sleep. Wow, I’m sounding crazy to ME now, so you must be ready to commit me. I could though. Ask Ryan. Before Jake was a full on boy, when he was still kind of a baby, I’d hear him start to wake and fuss over the monitor and I could almost hone in on him and start calming myself and picture him falling peacefully back to sleep. Within moments, that’s what would happen. Now that he’s 3, when I picture him waking, it usually means he won’t sleep through the night and sometime before sun up he’ll sneak in my bed, and that is always how it goes.

With Josh, my youngest, I have no control. I know at 5 months he’s going to be waking up. I fully expect it, especially since he has reflux issues that make him uncomfortable during the night. My thing here is that just moments before he wakes, I know it’s going to happen. Some crazy 6th sense thing. Knowing that I used to be able to “think” Jake back to sleep had me trying to will Josh to do the same but as of yet it hasn’t happened.

Maybe it’s my vivid imagination, maybe mothers intuition. I’m posting this asking how totally nuts I sound (to moms only, I know all men will comment that I’m a raving lunatic.) Do any of you have something similar like this with your kids? Maybe not sleeping but something else? I know I’ve had friends who’ve had their mothers suddenly stop them from taking a ride in a car only to later find out there was an accident. Crazy, creepy stuff, but I believe it happens.

We made these children, they are a part of us. Yes, they’re a part of their fathers too, but as my son Jake said to me once, “Daddies give the recipe, mommies make the baby.” That 9 months is a LONG time to be connected to someone, maybe a part of us stays connected in more ways that just your basic DNA.

Come on, gals. Tell me I’m not alone in this.