Tricks to settle down in the evenings and improve sleep while pregnant?
January 10, 2015 9:39 AM   Subscribe

Hello! I am just starting my second trimester and the evenings and nights are a tricky time for me. I am not mentally worried about anything and feel very positive about being pregnant, but physically I feel pretty funny at night. My legs get restless, I feel tense and tight... I run too cold and then too warm. My clothes don't feel right- tags and seams bother me, I end up changing a few times in the evenings and I get itchy. Food doesn't seem to sit right and I get a sickly feeling in my stomach. Did you feel this way? How long? What helped? Mental tricks or games?

At night I wake up about an hour after falling asleep and a few more times after that. My mind feels asleep but I feel so restless I end up getting up and having a cup of cereal.

My lifestyle: I eat fairly healthy and only have a cup of coffee in the morning, no other caffine- but I prefer not to cut that out because my other pregnancy symptom is crazy intense headaches a few times a week, very early in the morning, and coffee helps them go away. I do yoga once a week, stretch every evening, my husband massages my legs, I walk everyday and do proper, albeit light, exercise 3-4 times a week. Mentally I try to think about how thankful I am for all the great things in my life so I don't get overwhelmed by the unsettledness. But any advice is very very welcome!
posted by catspajammies to Health & Fitness (13 answers total) 5 users marked this as a favorite
 
Response by poster: Also! If anyone knows what purpose this serves nature, fill me in! Sometimes it helps to think my discomfort has a greater good.
posted by catspajammies at 9:48 AM on January 10, 2015


Best answer: Have your iron checked. Even being borderline anemic had my legs so. very. restless. during pregnancy. Supplementing my iron helped immediately and immensely.

Your description gave me flashbacks! Good luck!
posted by deadcrow at 10:16 AM on January 10, 2015 [2 favorites]


Best answer: I can't speak to much of this, but have you tried extra pillows or a pregnancy pillow? I found that helpful for sleeping.
posted by cestmoi15 at 10:30 AM on January 10, 2015


Best answer: Restless legs - try eating a banana and drinking milk if you think your stomach can take it. Calcium and magnesium are the two vitamins usually blamed for leg pains.

If your stomach is bothering you try upping your calcium and magnesium intake with dinner and then munching on crackers (I always preferred graham) near bedtime, or in bed.

There is so much going on with your body when you're pregnant. I think at night you are less busy and more able to hear your bodies complaints.

Check with your ob but unisom is reccommended as an anti-nausea aid during pregnancy and I could see trying it as a sleep aid at night.

When I was super itchy during pregnancy I slathered myself in cream and wore my night gown inside out so there were no seams against me. Lotions with menthol are excellent for itching. Sarna cream is one, or in a pinch vicks vapo rub feels good too.
posted by MadMadam at 11:09 AM on January 10, 2015 [1 favorite]


Best answer: Sleep naked.

Have a warm shower before retiring, and use a spray oil all over, get your husband to do your back.

Drink camomile tea or another warm, calming beverage (cocoa!)

The whirling thoughts thing can be a B-12, iron deficiency, so get that tested. I've been anemic my entire adult life and when I get stressed, that brain thing really does a number on a person.

Hang in there. It's really no fun.
posted by Ruthless Bunny at 11:24 AM on January 10, 2015


Best answer: I took a lot of baths, drank milk and are bananas and swam a lot during my pregnancies. I never felt better than when in a pool or tub.
posted by saradarlin at 12:32 PM on January 10, 2015


Best answer: N-thing having your iron checked. My restless legs during pregnancy were a very reliable indicator of low iron. Should help with some of the temperature control as well (but not all of it. Some of that you're just stuck with. Welcome to pregnancy!)
posted by olinerd at 1:18 PM on January 10, 2015


Best answer: 12 or 24 hr Mylanta (rannitide) helped the sickly feeling. YMMV

A cup of hot milk (cocoa or with some vanilla is nice) helped immensely - I assume you put milk on your cereal? Might be why you're going for it.

There's a brand of liquid iron that is easily absorbed and didn't upset my stomach, tastes ok - Floradix. (IANAD - see yours first)

I got leg cramps if I didn't eat bananas every day - potassium. 10 minutes of stretching helps s lot too.
posted by jrobin276 at 2:08 PM on January 10, 2015 [1 favorite]


Best answer: Get your iron checked. It's typically checked in the 3rd trimester but that doesn't mean you couldn't be borderline anemic now. I am 39 weeks pregnant and only found out a month ago that I am severely anemic. I had also been sleeping terribly despite tinkering with sleep meds. Once I started supplementing with iron beyond the prenatal and generally iron rich diet I had already been eating, I was able to sleep through the night again.

Calcium can impede iron absorption so you may not want to take iron pill and calcium together.

It also sounds like you may have mild heartburn going on, too. Talk to your doctor/midwife about using Zantac or similar to help with that.

I am horrified by the number of pills I'm taking right now but at least I'll get to dial it back a notch after the birth.

Good luck with rest of your pregnancy!
posted by stowaway at 3:42 PM on January 10, 2015


Best answer: Get a Snoogle! It was absolutely lifechanging for sleep when I was pregnant.
posted by erst at 5:47 PM on January 10, 2015


Best answer: I had a lot of luck with Floradix for the iron and B vitamins, along with Unisom for the sleep. The upside of the Floradix is that you get your iron without the side effects of a regular iron pill.
posted by checkitnice at 7:43 PM on January 10, 2015


Best answer: Lots of good ideas here, I have one more.

During my pregnancy I got sleep headphones (kind of like a fleece headband) and listened to Hypnobabies tracks when I got in bed. I don't know how much it helped me during labor, but they did seem to help with a more positive attitude in pregnancy and to relax me and help me fall asleep.
posted by treehorn+bunny at 10:30 PM on January 10, 2015


Response by poster: Thank you mefites!

I started taking floradix the next day (monday) and since Wednesday I have been mostly sleeping through the night. We asked for my iron levels to be checked, but its made a huge difference. We never would have come up with that answer ourselves. Thank you so much! I didn't realize how miserable I actually was until I started to feel better. Thank you!
posted by catspajammies at 6:35 AM on January 17, 2015 [1 favorite]


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