Sleep during pregnancy is not an easy task. Pregnancy can often feel like a roller-coast of emotions and physical experiences. However, just because you are taking the mammoth task of developing a new human over the course of nine months, it doesn’t mean you are any less deserving of living healthily, being taken care of, and experiencing a great quality of life.
Perhaps one of the most fundamental principles of great quality of life is a solid, reliable sleeping pattern. This includes a sleeping pattern you can rely on or feel comfortable in. It means good sleeping quality, and a sleeping environment conducive to your needs. To use the old, tired (pun not intended) catchphrase, it’s true that you’ll be sleeping for two.
That being said, improving your sleep is, unfortunately, not as easy as ‘purchasing the right products in the store’ or simply curating the motivation to do better. It takes time, and effort, and willingness to improve your sleep habits. Some nights simply won’t be very good, on account of the physical changes taking place in your body.
Does that mean there’s no room for improvement? Of course not. In this post, we hope to help pregnant women achieve the best sleep quality possible.
Sleep Hygiene
While pregnancy is quite a unique situation, it’s true that many of the same principles of good sleep hygiene apply. If you can, wash your sheets as often as possible. Ventilate the room to a worthwhile extent. Some people enjoy using air filters or fans to help purify or move around the air in the room. This can also help in the midst of heatwaves.
Sleep hygiene is also found in the little things. For instance, blue light reflecting from devices (such as televisions, monitors and other screens), can affect your circadian rhythm. This is why many devices, such as smartphones, now offer blue-light filtering at a certain time of day, which turns the screen a shade of amber. This helps prevent the blue light from interfering with your natural body clock. Some estimates say this could grant people up to an hour of extra deep sleep a night.
On Supplements
When pregnant, it’s exceedingly important to vet any supplements by speaking to your Doctor. Supplements may affect you differently to how they would affect you when not-pregnant, and so it’s important to find the worthwhile balancing point and distinction here.
We mention this, because often ‘sleep aids’ or natural supplements are recommended for those trying to improve their sleep schedule. It’s not always clear if they work, or if they are suitable for you at this particular time. You may have heard of melatonin, for instance, and how it can help you once again reclaim your natural sleep cycles. Click here for a fantastic guide discussing if this is a worthwhile supplement for you to use, and what you can expect from doing so.
Work With Your Partner
Work with your partner, if you’re together and going through this process as a team. They know you need to be helped, and that extra provisions should be made. It’s important to use those. If you need them to fix their snoring problem, speak to them about it. If you find yourself waking up both hot and cold during the night, always throwing off or throwing on the covers, you might need to talk with them about cuddling or anything else that could contribute to your restlessness.
You may even need to change the composition of your bed. Memory foam mattresses can be rather expensive, but they offer an unparalleled level of custom support for your body shape. Furthermore, L pillows or pregnancy pillows take up a fair bit of room, but are comfortable to lie with as they help support your entire torso in the best possible position. Comfort is a big part of falling asleep more easily, and as your baby bump grows, finding the most worthwhile solutions for you is akin to practicing great self-care.
Sleep Where You Can
Sleep where you can. It will help you catch up on the hours you might lose to morning sickness or other physical effects of being pregnant. If you have time for a mid-morning nap, then that’s a great idea. If you feel tired, don’t feel obliged to stay up to a certain time, heading to bed earlier can be important.
If people who lift weights sometimes require more than the eight or nine hours of sleep each day to recover from their intensive activity (this is especially true of powerlifters), then we’re willing to assume that pregnancy brings with it its own physical toll on your body. This means that taking the time to sleep where you can, and being unapologetic for it, is important. Of course, if you find yourself thoroughly lethargic and unable to function without massive amounts of sleep, visiting your Doctor is the best bet.
Eat Well & Stretch
As explained before, comfort is a large predictor of how easily you’ll fall asleep. This means that working out the kinks that accumulate as part of being pregnant can be important. Eat well, and be sure not to eat sugary or heavy-carb foods before bedtime. This can artificially keep you up. Stretching, to the extent that you’re able (as well as safely), will help you feel a little more comforted and less limited in your physical form at night. These two things, in combination, can help your bedtimes feel that much more pleasant.
Before-Bed Routines
A before-bed routine is so important for proper and lasting sleep. Taking the time to read, or groom yourself, or take a long shower, or simply meditate can help you rid your mind of the swirling thoughts of the day and get some great sleep that rejuvenates you. Here’s an important tip – place your smartphone just out of reach. You might need it being pregnant, after all, but you don’t want to be laying in bed scrolling your endless Twitter feed. Before-bed discipline is by far the biggest contributor to good sleep out there.
With this advice, we hope you can more easily improve your sleep. After all, being pregnant should be no barrier to enjoying a great, healthy life.
