‘Perhaps,’ I joked to a friend, ‘it took having a baby to make me understand how to chill out a bit’. The warnings I’ve always invited - if rarely heeded - is to slow down a bit, to rest better. My father always surmises, a tone of caution in his voice, that I’ve been “burning the candle a bit”, as if I run on a wick that is always doubly borrowed from.

In pregnancy, these suggestions ramped up, and only my own body would make me listen, with heavy-lidded naps that would crash into my afternoons. The weariness I’d find myself surprised by in the midst of running errands in town; the strange shortness of breath I’d be left with simply walking up the stairs. Now the baby is here, and we are both told to rest: to sleep when the baby does, to nap when you can, to be kind to yourself.

I’m writing this in pajamas. The baby is at my feet, not as asleep as I’d like. Food bubbles on the hob, and it is dark outside. We suspend the house in half-light from 7pm, when we try to convince C, who has no understanding of time, that things have shifted and night is happening instead of day. Several nights ago, right when C was new, M and I ate dinner at the table while he slept on the floor in his basket. How cosy it was, to have this small creature with us as we did something so ordinary.

Of course, we have never slept as little as since he turned up: not a night’s sleep uninterrupted in three weeks now, and the first couple without any at all. There have been times when I have felt so tired that, even hours later, I cannot remember what happened - which of us settled him, or changed his nappy. But mostly I have been surprised by this new, almost bright state of being that has set in. My edges have softened, certainly. I am in no rush to check emails, let alone answer them. I miss deadlines for things and catch up when I can. I used to be comforted by planning relentlessly, and now I know, almost instinctively, that we have to take each bit of the day as it comes. We see what the day brings - sunshine, bluster, a baby that wants to feed or vomit when I thought I might leave the house - and go from there.

This is how my rest looks, I think. I have spent whole afternoons on the sofa beneath a sleeping baby. I have wanted to stay inside when the skies are grey. It’s surprised me, how little I want to move or do or be. How happy I am to be cosy. Earlier this week I spent several hours trying to return a parcel. Between closed corner-shops, the failure of a certain delivery service of ill-repute, a call to a customer service line, tip-off from a friendly stranger, the kind donation of tape and paying a pound for a man to print off a label in the back office of a cafe, C and I managed it after doing a full loop between home, Loughborough Junction, Camberwell Church Street and back again. It was the kind of endeavour that previously would have rankled me as a colossal waste of time. But time is slippery now and segmented into three-hour chunks. The baby was asleep, I needed to do something - why not this?

It won’t always be like this, I know. Already there have been moments when the house has felt small and constraining, where my desire to be out - to hear the world beyond, to feel its grub on my skin - has been so great I’ve locked myself out of it to stand on the doorstep and watch people going about their day, hormonal tears streaming down my face. I will want the big things again, to go beyond taking the bus or carrying the buggy up the stairs by myself. I will want to do more with a day than buy a loaf of bread. There are emails to send, places to be, books to write.

But for now this shift is new and keening and, like many parts of this whole thing, I’m finding it fascinating. I wrap the baby up in blankets knitted by the women who came before him. I feel, a little, like the same is happening to me. Cosy.