Thank you to 90s dance troupe Faithless for inspiring the title of today’s post!
Since entering my third trimester I have found it increasingly more difficult to sleep. It began with 5 days of no sleep…by which point I had turned into a zombie (see below), and decided it probably wasn’t a safe idea for me to leave the house, let alone go to work. Then my wonderful Mutti kindly bought me lots of new, comfy pillows, which I now use to create a nest around me every night (to be honest, with me, Bump and the pillows there’s not lot of room for Nick anymore!)…and I began to sleep beautifully again.
| Me without sleep… |
However, the last few nights I have found myself restless once more. There’s so much advice on “how” to sleep when pregnant that I go to bed worrying…
“Don’t sleep on your back – it reduces blood flow to the placenta, and also can reduce blood flow to your heart so you’ll feel faint!”
“Don’t sleep on your right side as all the toxins in your body will go to the placenta!”
“Don’t sleep on your stomach…because…well, you can’t!”
So all we’re left with is to sleep on ones left side. And. I. Can’t! I wake up so many times during the night on my back and hoist myself onto the left side again, only to wake up an hour later on my back! As you can imagine, this fun game continues throughout the night (interjected by the night toilet stumbles…“down the stairs…don’t fall down the stairs…” and baby kicking “I’M HERE!!! HELLO MUMMY!!! IT’S 3AM AND I’M HERE!!!”) and I am plagued with worry! What if I’m cutting off her blood supply?? What if the toxins from that can of coca-cola get to her?? Why can’t I just learn to sleep on my left side??! I am at my wits end with this really – I’m looking forward to being able to sleep on my back once more (Mothers with newborn babies: “Sleep?? Hannah, you seriously think you’re going to get to sleep?!”), so I ask you readers – help me! How did you combat this? Did you just ignore the advice and sleep how you wanted? Did you magically train yourselves to sleep on the left? Did you cover every inch of your room in lavender until you did a Dorothy in the poppy field? Help!
| Image from here |
In more positive news: I only have 8 weeks of work remaining until I start maternity leave! So excited…and scared! I’m 30 weeks preggers on Wednesday…30 weeks! I can’t believe this little sleep-depriving, hiccuping, kicking trouble-monkey will be with us so soon.
I hope you’ve all had good weekends – and Mondays! Answers on a postcard…or via Twitter!
Until next time
Hannah
