Pregnancy Insomnia: How to survive the sleepless nights

One side effect of pregnancy that I am suffering from a lot worse this time than with Milo is pregnancy sleep insomnia. It has come and gone at various stages of this pregnancy but has certainly been at its worse in the last weeks. Most nights I am lucky if I manage to get to sleep between 2-4am and when you then add often hourly toilet trips to the mixture, you can imagine how much sleep I am getting right now. So much for making the most of sleep before the baby comes!

Thanks to a lot more wakeful hours of late and trying to stop myself from eating a whole extra days worth of food, boredom eating anyone?! I have been doing lots of chatting with fellow mums and mums-to-be on the subject and have come up with some tips on how to cope with the pregnancy insomnia. I may not be able to give you any miracle cures on how to make it go away but maybe I can ease the boredom and frustration at least a little...

Make the most of social media - Twitter has honestly become the saviour of my sleepless nights. Not only mine it seems as I have found myself nattering with many a fellow sleepless mother, quite a few who are up breastfeeding little ones, and it's been fab. We've chatted about the little ponderances of our days, what to do about pregnancy night-sweats (oh the glamour) and of course our lack of sleep! It may not sound like the stuff dreams are made of but it is really nice to know you are not alone and to have a little chinwag whilst you wait for the Zzzzzzz's.

Don't just lie there - A tip from fellow mum and tweeter @ModernMummyUK '' if you can't sleep ~ relax. DON'T lie there stressing about it! I had awful pregnancy insomnia and found that the days after the nights I'd just accepted I wasn't sleeping I was much less tired than after the ones I'd tossed and turned.'' I completely second this. I quickly learnt to not try and force myself to sleep, it doesn't work and in fact, only makes you more annoyed. Of course, give yourself a chance to get to sleep but if you know pregnancy insomnia is coming do something else and try again in an hour or so.

Do something useful - if you aren't going to be getting some much needed sleep then you might as well make the most of your extra time and get something useful done. 2am is of course not a great time to be hoovering the house or putting on the washing but there may well be some things you can tick off your pregnancy 'To Do List' that will at least fill you with satisfaction the next day along with your sleep-pangs.

Get comfortable - are night-sweats part of the reason you are waking up or staying awake? Is your room too hot or too cold? Is there a buzzing noise that is distracting you constantly? If there is an source you can put your fingers on that is keeping you awake or waking you up in the first place try and eliminate it as best you can before you go to bed. I know I am often waking up boiling at the moment, despite the low temperatures outside and no heating on, so I am going to bed wearing as little as possible in the hopes that I can get to sleep before I get too hot!

Whatever is on your mind, sort it out! - One of the things that was exacerbating my pregnancy insomnia in the early days was that once I had gotten up to go to the bathroom yet again, my mind started to fill with all the things I had to worry about, prepare, organise etc. As soon as those thoughts started to flood in, any hope I had of sleep was out the window. Of course it's well and good to say 'sort it out!', some of the issues may well not be so easy, but if some of the worries that are keeping you awake are possible to fix, then do it. Even if it is as simple as writing down all the things you are worrying about in a list. Having them on paper may be enough to dispell them from your mind for just long enough to get back in to a deep sleep.


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