Am I hurting my unborn baby?

[Boomerwang]

I'm 29 weeks now, and after a few weeks of barely any noticeable movement, my baby is having a good strong punch, kick and feels like it's spinning around at times.

What has always been consistent, however, is when I lie on my side/front in bed the baby ALWAYS starts to get physical. I lie in the recovery position, one leg drawn up, on my side, usually my right side.

When I lie like this the baby 'ripples' down low, punches and kicks and moves around a lot, and sometimes it speeds up and as of last night I actually started to wonder if I was squashing her or something, forcing her to fight for survival. In my head I imagined my body crushing her so I straightened both of my legs and leaned back a bit and almost immediately her movements stopped. I turned over and tried the other side and again she started moving a lot until I leaned back and gave bump more room.

So, call me irrational, but I'd hate to find out I was doing something terribly wrong when it's too late. Am I squashing my baby? If not, why does she move so forcefully when I lie on my side?

No you're not squashing your baby. She is just pushed up more against your womb so you feel more. She's not running out of space or air. Women are encouraged to sleep on their side in pregnancy too due to a vein that runs through the back.

My DD did this every night when I was pg. She was fine - but hated being swaddled and I always wondered if it was connected

Now I think it's just her contrary personality. At the age of three she has a great sense of her own importance and personal space.

yes, she'd be pushed up more, so I'd feel more, but I feel absolutely nothing from her if I ease off my side towards my back, not just a bit less. Is this common, then? I can't sleep on my back, haven't been able to do that since I got terribly overweight about 5 years ago and even though I've lost a lot of weight I haven't been able to do it again.

I hope it's okay, but if it wasn't then I would rather go without sleep than risk damage.

If you lie in the recovery position your pelvis is actually very open so she may, weirdly, have more room to squirm around in. Don't worry - every MW I know says, as long as you can get some sleep it doesn't matter what position you are in.

Thanks for that :)

I'm 33 weeks and this has just strated happening to me too. I have been comfortable sleeping on my front for quite a while as my bump seems very small, baby seems much more towards my back tha all out front. But recently I'm getting kicked painfully at night. It's like when I lie on my side he can suddenly stretch out and takes advantage of the opportunity to do just that. The kicks to my ribs can actually be painful, especially when combined with a nice stretching of the hands into my pelvic bones. You're not harming your baby, and it would be silly to try not to sleep. If anything, I can put up with it because by some miracle this coincided with the pressure coming off my bladder, so I'm only getting up once a night. I'll take the kicks over the hourly trips to the bathroom I think

I seem to be missing out a lot of the symptoms of pregnancy. I pee the same as I always have. Maybe I'll suffer later on :P