As I write this, I’m in my 39th week of pregnancy, it’s 3 AM… and I’m awake. Pretty standard fare these days.
While exhaustion besets me for much of the day, I’m usually awake for an hour or two each night between 1:30 and 4 AM. Unlike many pregnant women at my stage, it’s not primarily discomfort or tossing and turning that keeps me awake at night… I just wake up and can’t go back to sleep. Hormones, perhaps, or some kind of strange psychological ramping up for those coming night feeds – who knows? After about 20 – 30 minutes of lying awake in bed I get up to read or otherwise distract my brain for a bit before returning to sleep. Lately I’ve been finding that while I can’t sleep during these hours, I can’t not sleep in the early afternoon during my preschool-age kids’ naps. Exhaustion takes over and my brain and body simply shut down.
I’m fortunate not to struggle with back pain, heartburn, leg cramps, or any of the other major sleep-related problems that women in the final days of their pregnancies. Just the standard miniscule bladder that drives me to the bathroom every 2 – 3 hours and the obligatory three pillows (one for head, one for belly, one between legs) littering the mattress around my sleeping body. I do have a body pillow but have recently been finding the multiple individual pillow approach more comfortable.
Posts
