Trouble Sleeping and Morning Sickness

T.,
I know how you feel, I felt the EXACT same way. Even though it is hard try not to sleep so long in the evening. Just take a 30 minute nap after work and go to bed normal time. For the morning sickness, try ginger. I sipped ginger beer (it is just soda) before I would get up. ginger helps to ease the morning sickness. I also got ground ginger from the grocery store and would mix a teaspoon in about a cup of warm water, it doesnt really taste, but it works wonders!! Hang in there, the first trimester is the hardest. You will wake up one day soon and feel amazing. It is all worth it in the end!!

Hi T. -
I'm so sorry to hear about the mroning sickness. I had EXTREME moring sickness and threw up daily (sometimes multimple times) until my ob and nurse both told me to take one B-6 vitamin with a half of a unisom tablet. I didn't belive that it would work, but I felt helpless and give it a try! I can tell you it worked amazing - ask your doctor or nurse about it. If you take it at night it may help you get a bit more rest.

before you get out of bed in the morning eat something like crackers, dry cereal etc. have it on your nightstand. sit in bed a little bit and wake up slowly....not sure if this helps, but i know i ate something immediatley before i even showered and kept the sickness at bay.

I am 2 1/2 months pregnant with my second child. I had morning sickness before I even knew I was pregnant with the first up until the hour she came into our life. I found fresh squeezed lemonade worked great. Since it is work to make, get some lemonade and lemons, squeeze half a lemon in it. You know you are getting real lemon (which is supposed to help with morning sickness) without having to squeeze a lot just to get a cup of juice. This summer go get some fresh squeezed lemonade at a county/state fair. YUM!

So far this go round, my morning sickness is worse, and I haven't really found anything (other then the lemonade) to work. Although, I was told to eat meals that are rich in carbs, so I had Pizza and breadsticks the other day and it was the first meal I was able to keep down.

I hope you feel better soon!

First of all, what you're going through is completely normal. You're probably going to be exhausted for the remainder of the pregnancy. The good news is that you will get a lot of it back very quickly after the baby is born. The bad news is that you still won't be getting much sleep - welcome to being a mom!

Morning sickness often fades around month 4, so the heaving will probably get better by then. I got different advice with each pregnancy (3 in all). The three best were:

1) Eat what stays down - if you can eat chocolate and chicken, eat chocolate and chicken. Every person's triggers for sickness is different. There are a few things to avoid (shellfish, undercooked meat) but otherwise don't worry too much about it. Just eat what you can.

2) Eat something the instant you wake up. I used to have a lot of "dinner" type foods first thing in the morning. Sometimes yogurt worked for me, and sometimes it didn't. Protein-rich stuff (peanut butter, meat, diary) worked best on pregnancy #3, crackers worked best on pregnancy #1. Nuts worked best with pregnancy #2.

3) Establish a bedtime routine (reading, knitting, listening to music). Having a repetitive, consistent thing you do each night will help you get to sleep and stay asleep - it's the same with kids' bedtimes!

Don't panic - you're going to be OK. This is just part and parcel of being pregnant. You're building a person, after all - it's tough work.

You may want to consider checking out some pregnancy information books - your ob/gyn or midwife should have given you one at your first checkup, in fact. This is probably the last chance you'll have to do a lot of uninterrupted reading, and the next seven months will be a lot less scary if you have some idea of what's coming up.

Take vitamin B6 and half a tablet of unisom. This was one of the many things my doctors/midwives have offered me over the years. Also drink Powerade it has vitman B6 in it. You can't get any of the big meds like zofran until you are throwing up several times a day. I am just finishing up my 3rd and final pregnancy and have had morning sickness severe enough that I was on IV's for 6 weeks.

You should also eat and drink more at night sleeping those odd hours are making your morning sickness worse.

Hi T. I am 3 1/2 months pregnant. I also had severe morning sickness during my second month. Thankfully it went away after the first trimester. I tried everything, eating crackers, blah, blah, blah, nothing worked. I was sick if I had an empty stomach or had just eaten. I went to the ER and the doc said I had hyperemesis. They prescribed me zolfran to help which worked for a few days but then stopped. After my first OB appt my dr. prescribed another prescription that seemed to help. About 2 weeks later the morning sickness went away. I was through the first trimester. I heard taking unisom helps with nausea. Take half a tab in the am and half before bed. It would probably help with the sleeping thing too and its safe to take. I never used unisom because i tend to get too tired using it but maybe since your having trouble sleeping anyway it will work for you. Good luck and remember it probably won't last forever.

I had that problem with my first son. The doctor told me to take vitamin b6. Hope this helps

T.,
My doctor told me to take one tablet of unisom (as long as you are taking prenatal vitamins). I was sick morning, noon, night... the unisom took care of the nausea and sleeping issues. It is non-habit forming and is the only medication tested through all stages of pregnancy. My daughter turned out just fine and I survived the nasty morning sickness. If you are concerned about the use of this medication speak to your OB.

Oh, I know how you feel. I am almost 7 months along with my second child and I had 4 months of morning sickness. UGH!! And I still really dont get good sleep. But the lack of sleep comes from alot of other stuff I have going on. Anyway, I like to prop myself up with lots of pillows when I sleep. That helps a little. As far as the morning sickness goes I would try eatting something before getting out of bed or drink some water before getting up. I know it stinks to throw up but I always felt better afterward and was able to continue on with the rest of my day. If you are taking prenatals that sometimes makes the morning sickness worse, you can take those at night before you go to bed or you can take flinstones vitamins instead and they dont upset your tummy to bad. I also found that taking tums with my first son helped my morning sickness too. I hope these help. Dont worry it will pass soon.

Ginger tea, ginger candies and fresh lemonade...they are all wonders for morning(or all day) sickness :) As far as the shower...could be 1 of 2 things...I had terrible times with showers during my last pregnancy. MD told me that it was something with the humidity and limited me to a warm (no where near how I like it) 10 minute shower with the window open. That really helped. Without doing that I would get so nausous that I would almost pass out. So go ahead and try the crackers first before getting up and if you do end up with the cracker heaves, try the shower tricks. Could be your problem there. Hope this helps.

T....
I feel for you. I am in month 5 and just got over the morning sickness and the same sleep issues you are having. I found that the trouble with the morning heaving was actually that the mucous in my mouth is thicker in the morning this in turn triggers the gagging which leads to the heaving. What really helped was hot tea with lots of lemon. The warm water soothed my tummy and the lemon breaks down the mucous. I take about 20 mins. every morning to drink the tea before I get ready. If I do the shower immediately when I wake up it is a certainty I will get sick. Take the extra 20 mins. every morning to drink your tea and start the day off slow. Ginger ale also worked awesome for the evening sickness (again same concept fizz breaks up the mucous and ginger soothes the tummy as it is a digestive agent). I can't help you out on the sleep issue as I went throught the same thing and nothing helped. I can tell you however it gets better around month four and you will have more energy then too. I will however tell you something that makes sleep more comfortable.... Get yourself a Snoogle (body pillow shaped like a "C"). My husband purchased one for me as my breast hurt so bad in the first two months I could not get comfortable while sleeping.The Snoogle really helps to keep you on your side/back all evening as well as support your back and legs. I absolutely LOVE that pillow. Good luck to you ;o)

when i was pregnant I got sick every morning without fail from the 2nd month util i was about 7months along is was horrid, sometimes saltines made it less drastic, but you do need to eat them before you are really awake, keep water next to your bed too. i would stay away from the milk also. instead of sleeping when you get home from work find something to do or just sit around and be lazy, but don't sleep cuz then you wont sleep at night

my dr told me not to worry about sleep to much. For every hour that you are resting equals 20 minutes of sleep.

One thing that should really help is to not sleep until it is bedtime. Sleeping from 6-8 is not good in terms of interfering with your nighttime sleep. I completely understand the exhaustion - I had it too... But if you want to help your problem, you should really stick to a sleep schedule and your body will get itself on track. If you are tired, just lay on the couch and relax. Hope you start feeling better soon...

I thought the same thing when I was having am sickness but eating the crackers (make sure they are soda crackers) before you barely have opened your eyes and it actually does help. I had a box of soda crackers on my night stand for 3 months and the minute I woke up I would have 2 right away, before I got out of bed and it did help. I did throw up a few times but not a lot. Also try sucking on ginger candies (I got some at Cost Plus World Market called Ginger chews) they helped me a lot, or make ginger snap cookies with extra ginger in it, ginger really helped get me thru that morning sickness part of my pregnancies...
Good Luck K. H

HI T.,
Oh the "fun" of the first 3 months of pregnancy. I've gone thru it twice and was so sick the first 3 months both times. Crackers do kind of help, and it doesn't turn into cracker heaves. (-: Ginger helps also - ginger ale or crystalized ginger candies. Eating through out the day and small amounts at at time may help also. Everyone is different when it comes to this. I remember not being able to stand the smell of coffee when I was pregnant so just stay away from trigger smells and foods. My poor husband had to buy coffee when he left the house for 9 months. Someone once told me and it makes sense, while you're pregnant your body is working as hard as if you were climbing a large mountain, so it is very normal and natural for you to be very tired. Hopefully you'll get that second tri-mester surge of energy, because it will probably drop again during the third trimester. Body pillows work great to cuddle up against. It is not fun, but just keep thinking of that precious little baby you will be holding all too soon. Take advantage of any times you can take a nap too!!
Best of luck.
T.

I am in my ninth month with baby # 2. When I was pregnant with my 4 year I suffered from horrible morning sickness. My obgyn (Partners obgyn in Maplewood) had my take 1/2 a pill of Unisom once a night. Unisom is an over the counter sleep aid so it helped me sleep at night too. This time around, I don't have the morning sickness problems I had but I have had a hard time sleeping. My obgyn (the same doctor from my first) suggested Unisom again, this time 1 whole tablet 30 minutes before bed. So talk to your doctor and hopefully it will work for you.

Hi T.,
Sorry to hear about your morning sickness and your sleepless nights. When I was pregnant my ob/gyn told me to take unisom which worked like a charm. As far as the morning sickness I was lucky I didn't have it but maybe 3 times, but my dr told me to eat a banana. My friends that had morning sickness tried this and said it worked. Good luck to you and your new little bundle of joy. Sorry I couldn't be more help.
L.