Sleep deprivation during pregnancy

It’s a strange thing is that during pregnancy sleep deprivation is probably one of the most irritation elements of it all. Well it was for me. My reasoning was that I knew I’d be sleep deprived AFTER the baby arrived so why on earth was it so difficult to get some decent sleep during pregnancy?
The old argument is that Mother Nature is preparing us for a lifetime of it, which is probably true. Kind of like training for the Olympics that is parenthood.

There are of course multiple reasons why I didn’t sleep well during my pregnancy.
At the start it was the needing to get up and go to the toilet every couple of hours and towards the end, being the size a small killer whale and having horrific backpain was the major one. Of course I couldn’t take anything for the pain, so I became very good friends with the rice pack , and I did all manner of strange things with pillows in order to try to get comfortable and get some sleep. Buying a decent pillow was some of the best money I could have spent!

Interestingly I started sleeping on my left as I grew bigger and bigger. It turns out that was the best thing I could have done as apparently this improved the blood flow to the placenta which was the key organ helping my baby to grow. Mother Nature has a way of silently stepping in sometimes doesn’t she?

My girlfriend Nat had horror heartburn and had to learn the hard way not to eat anything before bedtime, though as many of you will know, that’s often the time the munchy cravings hit hardest.

I also suffered from restless leg syndrome which if you’ve had you’ll know how annoying it is. So in the end I used to have to go for a brisk walk for at least forty minutes about an hour before bed time. It helped clear my head and settle my legs. Everyone has different ways of coping with the lack of sleep.
What were yours?