Pregnant while parenting? How?

[Cocomelonhauntsme]

Help.

I am 4000 years pregnant (37 weeks) with a nearly 3yo. I am bad at being pregnant. Normally healthy and active, eat well, multivitamins etc but during pregnancy I become a blob of exhaustion and pain.
Constant nausea, PGP, exhaustion etc. It was the same last time, blood tests, urine tests etc all fine, I am just a bad gestator.

Anyway last time I survived by being unconscious 23 hours of the day. Alas despite what he seems to think toddler is not self-sufficient and SS may have something to say about it. Husband incredibly supportive and taken on 100% of burden when home.

Toddler is quite clingy and not great at independent play. I am resorting to screen time way, way more than I would like.

I am very much a common-sense, do what works best for your family parent and happy to lapse the rules a little but would also be very grateful for any tips on surviving this time.

Feel a little like I'm failing at parenting the first and too exhausted to do all the yoga, meditation, bonding with the second which I loved first time round.

Also 38 weeks pregnant with a toddler here. Screens are on far too much, and DD has stopped asking me to get up and dance / do physical play with her as I'm constantly saying no. Blob on sofa energy is strong here too.

I feel guilt about this all constantly but it's all I can do!

Everyone I've spoken to has said pregnant with a toddler is 100x harder than managing a baby and toddler. Keep hanging in there and just do whatever you need to do to get by for now :-)

I can relate to this but no advice I'm afraid.
I'm only 28 weeks and have an almost 2 year old.
I have pgp, feel like I can barely move and just total exhaustion and like you, have a very hands on husband that's doing a lot!
I must admit, it's made me doubt me ability to have two children and how (un)enjoyable it may be that f I feel like this after the birth!

I remember it well. My toddler was two and I was so exhausted plus morning sickness lasted until my baby was born. My toddler watched a lot of Disney films in our room while I lay on the bed and I also remember asking a grandparent to care for them often.

I was pregnant with a nearly 2 year old. Once it hit 11:30am and all my energy reserves had been exhausted for that day, I would sit the toddler on the floor on one of those plastic backed picnic rugs, fill a mixing bowl and a washing up bowl full of water (one warm, one cold with ice in it), throw in a load of utensils / diffwrent sized pots, and let him at it. Bought a guaranteed 45 mins sofa time every time.

After dinner I usually collapsed on the floor like a starfish, on my tummy with pillows under chest and hips to support the bump, and let him climb all over me trying to walk up my back and jump off my shoulder blades. Again, guaranteed 30 mins of peace plus a massage to boot.

in between these two activities was wall to wall screen time. You’re nearly at the finish line

Same as pp - we got through it with too much screen time (i swear the Hey Duggee theme soothed DD2 from the get go after hearing it so many times before she was born) and DH being amazing whenever he wasn't working. We had the added complication that from 36w, I had high BP which turned into preeclampsia and so I was at the hospital every second day for monitoring / bloods / urine dips with the warning that I could be told to stay in and have the baby at any time. She took until 39+3 to make her sweet appearance so this went on for weeks! 😫

Luckily you've not got long to go and it really does get easier once you aren't the size of a house anymore!

All I can really say is just hang on in there. This will pass. I have been there, during COVID so options to send the toddler elsewhere were very limited. There was a LOT of Cbeebies. And YouTube. One of his first words was YouTube 😭 there's loads of good videos of animals on YouTube, that's kind of a nice change from kids TV. Pandas being idiots is the best I think

He has no memory of it now, he's super bright and happy and the bond the two of them have is incredible, it's just the best thing ever seeing their mad games and conversations and watching them be kind to each other. You have so much fun to come. You are doing so well just getting through each day. Just keep going