"Sleep while you can" UGH!

[WorldEndingFire]

I'm getting so fed up of hearing this. At 32 weeks I am waking up at least every two hours with hip pain or needing to go to the toilet and while I am maintaining good levels of healthy activity it is infuriating to be told to rest while you can when no position feels truly comfortable or sustainable awake or asleep!

I'm not alone in this, right!?

I always hated that too; it's not like you can bank it and take a chunk out on a night in eight months' time when your baby is teething. So not how sleep works

Exactly! It just feels like useless faux-wisdom (along with the classic horror stories that are suddenly creeping out the woodwork). I know the journey ahead is going to be extremely tiring but that doesn't diminish the very real discomfort I'm experiencing right now.

I'm generally enjoying pregnancy (with the SPD/heartburn/sleepless discomfort aside) but I cannot wait to sleep on my back or my front again, even if it is for stolen moments every few hours!

When I was pregnant I didn’t sleep for six months due to hip pain and intense itching from obstetric cholestasis. I was thrilled to give birth and be able to sleep painlessly on my back. Even the broken sleep I got with a new baby was better than the zero sleep I got while pregnant!

Sorry to be a detractor but I agree with the sentiment. I remember huffing and puffing up a hill when heavily pregnant, a young woman pushing a pram was coming towards me and I gave a comedy grimace hoping, hoping for some sympathy. "Hmph!" she snorted "Just wait till it's out". She was right.

I hated this too when pregnant, but oh my I wish I'd listened!

I'd take the newborn sleepless nights over pregnancy sleepless nights anyday. No more aches, nausea, vomiting, peeing every 20 mins, trying to get in me out of bed and the baby deciding 3am was disco time in utero. OP don't listen to the horror stories, my dd was a great sleeper, ds was more challenging but still preferred it to pregnancy

It is true though... Sorry!

Afraid I agree with @MrsEricBana & @Flatwhite32 I have a 6 month old who wakes up every 2 hours. Yes at least there's "snuggly cuddles" but I haven't slept more than 3 hours max in a row since I was about 6 months pregnant.

I would change the language to "sleep when you can during the day"; as soon as you start Mat leave just nap nap nap nap nap. I didn't, I was determined to walk around and keep mobile to help with an easy birth. Didn't fucking work and my kid only sleeps for 30 mins at a time during the day now. NAP NAP NAP NAP NAP

Also congrats &etc babies are lovely and cute even when they're trying to kill you through lack of sleep

I’ve never slept as badly as in the last trimester. Heartburn, hip pain, baby kicking, nightmares, can-I-really-look-after-a-baby panic, constant need to wee, raging hunger and thirst. I have slept way WAY better with a baby than that, including when she was a newborn. First trimester was the tiredest I’ve ever been in that walking through treacle no amount of sleep helps way, last trimester was the worst sleep. Honestly, my experience is that a baby is a loads easier than pregnancy. If you BF you’ll get loads of enforced rest, on the sofa or cosy in bed. And even if you’re waking often with your baby, you’ll have a baby to gaze at, which makes it feel like the best reason to be awake ever invented, and when you are sleeping you’ll be properly out cold. Yet weirdly able to wake at their slightest snuffle. It’s magical. Rest for now even when you can’t actually sleep. Build a pillow fort for maximum comfort, I had three normal pillows and a shaped pregnancy pillow which I wrapped around me and put between my knees and it did help. You’ve got a nearly fully grown baby in you, it’s fucking exhausting. But you’re on the home stretch and you might get an amazing sleeper and catch up when they’re here!

I slept worse pregnant than pp, ds slept through from 6 weeks 11pm to 7am for a start.. I didn’t need 250billion pillows for reflux, pain, jamming myself into a corner and keeping dp far from my zone.. and now I’m completely mad and doing it all again. 21weeks and my 7month old sleeps better than me still!

Some babies are bad sleepers but you can always nap when they do during the day, if they’re bottle fed or you pump someone else can take over till you get a solid block.. no one can pop on the bump.

Haha I was on crutches because of SPD. turning over killed for sure I was woken up but then I had DS and was up 4 times a night for 13 months. Crap day time sleeper too and I've only just got my sleep back so It's true- sorry.

It is true though... Sorry!

Not for everyone though and still not remotely helpful to a heavily pregnant woman who can’t sleep much! For a couple of months my DD slept 10 or 11 hours a night, unusual but possible and I slept loads. She’s up a couple of times now at 7 months but I can get 4 hours in a row which never happened when I was 32 weeks pregnant and we got up at 10 today. Everyone’s different. The whole language around pregnancy and babies is so unhelpful, when things are difficult you’re told to suck it up as the next stage will be worse. When things are going well you’re told not to get complacent as awful times are ahead. Not. Helpful.

I hated this too when I was pregnant , it used to irritate me so much I snapped at a well meaning relative who trotted it out that if I could sodding breathe sleeping on my back or not have to get up to wee every three and a half seconds I bloody would.

Only thing is I was also totally unprepared for my two dc refusing to sleep and the fact it went on for what seemed like sodding ever. However they were brilliant eaters . Ignore the horror stories , it's no cake walk but at 6 and 3 now I look at newborns and think ahhhhh so it can't be that bad (saying that ...not ahhhhh enough to risk another)

Basically my rule became ignore any advice not given in a medical context (by an actual professional because tracy from three doors down who got hers to sleep with an orange hanging from a divining rod is exactly as nuts as she sounds )because it's usually bollocks and only works for that persons particular circumstances.

Likin sleeping in the last trimester....for sleeping beauty it probably worked....for me ? Nope.

Ignore the comments op. ..or tell them to sod off...either works

I think it depends on the combination of how the pregnancy is going and what type of non sleeper your baby is. Last time around my pregnancy went fairly easily and I was sleeping ok right up to going into labour (I even got a few cat naps in during!!). Then my baby was a frequent feeder / non-sleeper. So the thing I hated most was that I wasn’t in charge of when or for how long I could sleep. It was really difficult falling asleep and not knowing whether I’d get 30 minutes, an hour or two, or longer. So it definitely felt worse after than during pregnancy.

This time around my SPD and back pain are so bad that I haven’t had a good night’s sleep since before 20 weeks. I’m in constant pain and even when I do drift off, it’s not for long and it’s not a restful sleep. I’m sure the newborn stage will be just as difficult. But I think the big difference is going to be in the contrast - I’m hoping that at least once baby here, the small amounts of sleep I get will actually be proper sleep...

People telling me I could "nap when he naps" pissed me off far more. Impossible by the time you lay down and stop your heart racing from the adrenaline of getting Ds down he was up again. Not to mention dealing with other commitments whilst he was asleep.

Wait til your pregnant with the next one!

Yep I agree with the one about nap when he naps. ..load of rubbish post about 6 weeks when real life starts to creep in again.

I even had someone say it to me with ds2. ....OK then ...and what shall I do with my eldest , he's three so probably give him a shank and a backpack of ham sandwiches and tell him to fend for himself? The neighbourhood wouldn't have survived.

Again op tell advice givers to sod off unless they wish to give you a profile bed , hourly back rubs, warm baths on tap and industrial strength (pregnancy safe) painkillers.

And if they are prepared to do that let them say what they like

And honestly, though the first 12 weeks are hard I slept pretty OK with both kids after that point. It's not true that you'll 'never sleep again' once you have a baby, I'd say the vast majority of parents I know weren't being interrupted more than once a night by 6 months, only a small minority had long term disrupted sleep.

NB, I was also annoyed by 'sleep when they sleep' - I can't sleep in the daytime without knowing I have a good 90mins+ uniterrupted, and mine napped between 20 mins and 2 hours and there was no way of knowing which it would be. Some useful advice I can pass on is that 10-minute guided meditations on Youtube are great for feeling rested if you can't be sure of having enough time to actually nap!

If you normally sleep on your front like I do those first few stints of sleep after baby is born are amazing, in any position you like! It may be broken sleep but it's soooo comfortable compared to heavily pregnant!

I found pregnancy so, so much easier than having a newborn but I still don't get why on earth people say this. It's not like you can save it up in a sleep bank and then get it back out when you're mad with sleep deprivation later. I absolutely hate napping, though, and do it only in the direst of sleep circumstances, so I just didn't get why people were going on about 'treating myself' with naps when I was pregnant.

It's so tough. You end the pregnancy knackered from sleeping poorly... and then it gets all too real.
The sleep when the baby sleeps bit is sensible advice but did I ever take it? No, of course not. It really got old hearing that advice. Though if you can, do it.

Actually, thinking about it I'm incredibly glad I didn't spend pregnancy napping. I went super stir crazy in the early weeks with DS and absolutely hated being stuck on the sofa feeding all day (I had a birth injury so I couldn't just do the 'pop him in the sling and get on with things' thing in the first few weeks), I'm glad I didn't start that early!

I had terrible insomnia when pregnant and would take the broken sleep with a newborn any day: being able to sleep on my front again and actually being able to fall asleep rather than lying awake for hours more than made up for the times you’d be up all night because they wouldn’t settle.

@Echobelly I hear you on the unknown nap length - my 9 week old DS can go down for 2 minutes or 90 and there is no way of knowing which it’ll be, he behaves and looks exactly the same when going down for both! I feel so much worse when I have a too-short nap so I don’t risk it and just stay awake. I’m putting the ‘sleep when the baby sleeps’ advice in the same bin as those who told me to try ginger biscuits for morning sickness, well meaning advice but no good when you’re 40 weeks and still hurling 3 times a day.

Omg @afternoontwee that's another one "just pop him in the sling" UGH
Trying to think of other great suggestions now