Pregnancy insomnia is very common, but it varies a lot from woman to woman and over the duration of a pregnancy.
Who gets pregnancy insomnia? Most women! Almost 80% of pregnant women can’t sleep as well as they did before getting pregnant. But one thing to keep in mind is that although you may not be sleeping well, insomnia of this type does not harm your baby.
The main symptoms of pregnancy insomnia are: difficulty falling asleep or staying asleep. It can also mean waking up frequently in the middle of the night, or waking up in the morning but feeling unrefreshed.
Pregnancy Insomnia Causes
Trouble sleeping with a bun in the oven can be caused by any of the following (or several at one time!): general discomfort because of the much larger abdomen, back pain, anxiety, the need to urinate more during the night, heartburn, nervousness and excitement about the coming baby, more dreams than usual, and hormonal changes affecting the body. In short, because your body is undergoing so many changes, you aren’t used to the way your body is during pregnancy and so you might not sleep as well until you adapt. Also, some parts of pregnancy just make sleeping more difficult, and that’s totally normal.
7 Natural Remedies for Insomnia During Pregnancy
- Sleeping positions – just try out different positions for sleeping
- Do more exercise in the day, particularly regular exercise
- Learn some new relaxation techniques (they’re taught in childbirth classes too)
- Change your room to make it more conducive to sleep: add music or relaxing sounds and adjust the temperature
- When you can’t sleep, don’t stay in bed awake. Get up and read, have a small snake, or drink some milk.
- Take naps and sleep at other times whenever you can
- Take a bath or get a massage before going to sleep to relax your body
One thing that might work for you is just to separate your bed (and bedroom) from being awake. So when you’re in your bed, you’re sleeping, and if you can’t sleep, you’re not in your bedroom. A further thing that helps some people is just doing anything. Even if you think some of the natural remedies provided won’t help that much, sometimes it helps just to know you’re doing something to work on your problem.