Pregnancy Insomnia – infuriatingly productive

pregnancy insomnia

 

Pregnancy insomnia is a fun side-effect isn’t it?!

 

Not only is my pelvic floor questionable and my low blood pressure making me feel like a total sloth, now I ALSO get to spend many precious hours I was hoping to bank sleeping – WIDE awake for no apparent reason. 

 

I’m usually able to go to sleep okay, but if something happens to wake me between the hours of 2am and 5am – my eyes snap open and I feel as energetic as I would after a full night’s sleep.

 

I used to fitfully try to get back to sleep, but now I’ve given up.  Now I just get up and make myself a cup of tea and pretend that my day has started and this is a completely normal time of day to get up. (I’ve decided pretending is key. If you spend too much time thinking about how dog tired you’re going to be, well… that’s exactly what will happen. 

 

I’ve had pregnancy insomnia in my pregnancies with my boys as well, though each consecutive pregnancy seems to have brought it earlier and earlier.  I don’t remember waking until late-30 weeks with Eamon.  Perhaps my body knows with 2 other children already my ability to be productive during the day is now severely limited and so is waking me earlier so I can get stuff done before this baby arrives? #whatimtellingmyself

 

Back then, I would get up and scroll through nursery ideas and Mummy blogs. These days I get up and write blog posts (hello to you from 4am) or work on my book.

 

Someone told me when I was pregnant with Rory that I should take note of the time I was waking, because that would be when he would wake for a feed. Sure enough, it was spot on. 

 

A google search for how to beat pregnancy insomnia tells me really unhelpful things like ‘try not to drink water at nighttime’ and ‘try not to worry’, as if these were the reasons I am wide awake at 3am.

 

I really don’t believe there is anything you can really do for pregnancy insomnia, other than ride it out.  I try to take advantage of the couple of extra kid-free productive hours and just lower my expectations for what I expect to get done the following day (and catch a much needed nap if the day allows for it).

 

Watch the first video below on how I deal with pregnancy insomnia so that I can still function the next day or the second video for a yoga to help you settle back down to sleep.


So basically no one should expect much from me for the next… ohhh… 150 days, or so.

 

Did you get pregnancy insomnia?  Did you find you woke at the same time with your baby?

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