K.P.
E.,
I have done the bed rest thing with two of mine. It is hard to get that downtime unless you are willing to let the everyday routine go a little lax for a while. We would read alot, or play games while I was sitting/ lying down. You could have them run to their room and bring you something that is soft, hard, blue, small, big, sticky, etc. and then make up fun or funny things to do with those items like balance it on their head, sit on it, dance with it, hide it and help little bro find it color a picture of it. Do things that keep them moving, but allow you to rest, then use nap time for total rest time. Also when the kids are raring to go and my husband and I are beat, we do a dance party. We turn up some really fun music, and cheer each of the kiddos on while they exhaust themselves trying to one-up the other on his/her new moves. After 2 pregnancies with blood pressure struggles, I finally found a way to manage it on my own through lots of research and reading. If you limit your sodium intake, especially foods high in sodium nitrates (i.e. lunch meats, and frozen/processed meals), and increase your protein intake, along with a supplement of omega fish oils (alot, ask your doc how much is safe to take, I took 3-1200mg capsules 3 times per day), and use a very good prenatal vitamin, along with liquid calcium, you may be able to eliminate the need for bedrest all together, and all those things are healthy choices for pregnancy anyway, so it can't hurt. I was able to correct my high blood pressure problems with my last 2 pregnancies, and no bedrest! The high blood pressure had started to really take off with the third pregnancy, but after about two weeks of changing diet and supplements, went to normal, and I avoided the problem altogether with #4. Feel free to e-mail me if you want to chat more about this.