OK – I know what you were all thinking when you read the title of this blog post: “You won’t be getting any sleep for the next few years!”. This has been said to me many MANY times since I’ve been pregnant. Usually the giver of this *ahem* delightful nugget of insight says it with a big grin on their smug face and laughter in their voice. Humph.

But seriously, what has happened to the nights of falling asleep in under 5 minutes then only waking up in the morning to snooze my alarm at least 4 times? Luckily I have not had any trouble getting to sleep (apart from one terrible night filled with seriously painful acid reflux/trapped wind after a rich lasagne/garlic bread/Gu Pudding/Schloer meal) – I still manage to drop off pretty soon after getting in bed. I just don’t remember the last time I slept all the way through the night, though, and this is my biggest pregnancy bug bear so far. I have always been a big fan of sleep and am not the best person to deal with when I am tired or when I have just woken up. I am well-known to be hugely grumpy in the mornings the most notorious and ridiculous example of this is as follows:

At 16 I moved out of home into Halls of Residence to study my A Levels and attend a Table Tennis Academy where we trained every day. The best part of this experience was meeting my best friends Emily, Clara and Raewyn. The worst part was them getting to know every bit of my personality inside out thanks to us living out of each other’s pockets for two years. We’re still as close as ever so I guess it can’t have been that bad!? The “unfortunate incident” happened in the early hours of the morning when I was sleeping soundly after being disturbed by lots of noise whilst trying to get to sleep in the first place. (I’m trying to make myself sound a bit better with this excuse/reasoning for the behaviour you’re about to read about…) Emily and some of the boys thought it’d be hilarious to set up her mooing cow-print toastie maker outside the door of my room so I would walk into it in the morning and set off it’s “moo”. Admittedly I can see the funny side of this now. Unfortunately they accidentally set-off the “moo” whilst placing the toastie maker in the prime spot and, I have to admit, it tipped me over the edge. I saw red. I actually got the “fog of rage”- for those of you who don’t know/are not a tiny bit mental like me, this is where you see everything happen in slow motion with blurred edges and don’t really know what you’re doing. The next thing I remember is hurling the toastie maker down the hall, smashing it to smithereens off the wall….oops. 10 years on this story is still told to embarrass me and I still owe Emily a replacement toastie maker.

Anyway, I digress.

Strange dreams

My nights have been full of the most weird and intensely vivid dreams since becoming pregnant. This appears to be a common theme in most people’s pregnancies and I’m not sure if my sleep is more disturbed due to the dreams or, conversely, if my sleep is in fact lighter and more disturbed thus producing these strange dreams. It’s almost as if what I have been doing or talking about in the day has a direct influence on my dreams that night. Luckily I have only had two bad nightmares and the rest of the dreams have just been downright bizarre! None about babies yet but I’m sure those will come.

Toilet trips

Like an old person I have been waking up between 1-2am every morning for a trip to the loo. I’ve been trying really hard to drink more water during the day, it’s so important whilst you’re pregnant to stay hydrated, but inevitably I panic about how much water I’ve consumed so overcompensate when I get home. This and the increased blood circulating around my body results in the now-inevitable night time wee.

Inbuilt central heating

You do hear that you are likely to feel warmer when you’re pregnant. I’ve not really noticed it that much during the day, I have always been a cold person who constantly wears multiple layers all year round, but can see the difference at night. It’s November and we still have all the windows in our bedroom ajar all night and only just have our winter duvet on whereas usually I’d be sleeping in long PJs and fluffy socks at this time of year! It’s great not feeling chilly in bed but being hotter has also been disturbing my sleep.

Preparing for my new sleep pattern

As much as my “smile” to those telling me to prepare myself for lack of sleep over the next couple of years was, in reality, a grimace I think I can maybe see their point. Why else would my body suddenly be creating these sleep-disturbing habits? Even though I may have pushed this fact far into the back of my mind I will inevitably be up every couple of hours for the first few months of the baby’s life so I guess my current ‘problem’ is merely practice for March onwards! I’ll try and remind myself of this “silver lining” over the next 3 months!