7 Pregnancy Sleeping Positions That Will Never Go Out of Style

1. Back Support

One thing you can do to position yourself better is to put a pillow partly under your back. This is helpful for those who naturally sleep on their backs to keep you from rolling as you sleep and twisting your torso uncomfortably. 2Any pillow will help and you can decide if you want one that is long to hug your whole back, hips, and shoulders, or if you need one like a simple regular pillow to help with a certain part of your body. Some women have wider hips, some broader shoulders, so it really depends on your shape. It can become unsafe to sleep on your back as it puts too much weight on vital parts of your body and can aggravate back and hip pain throughout the following day.

2. Belly Support

Some women will carry a lot of weight on their front while being pregnant, so they will tend to roll forward more. Much of the time, this will result in twisting your torso like those who lean back. This stretching will tire out your back and often causes women to lean their hips and shoulders further back to counter their baby belly weight. This contortion can lead to stiff hips, knees, and neck. One of the best ways to stop this from happening is to use a wedge-style pillow or a nesting pillow. You may already have one in preparation for breastfeeding. Use the nesting pillow to cradle and support your belly, or the wedge pillow to help elevate some of that weight so you can sleep straighter and more comfortably.

3. Dual Back and Belly Support

Some of us have a really difficult time staying on our sides. For one reason or another, it just doesn’t feel natural and we end up rolling onto our backs or partly onto our stomachs in our sleep. Then we end up sore and usually waking up through the night to correct our position. For those who need some support on both front and back, using two pillows will help to keep you in the healthiest position for you and your baby. There are even 3pillows designed with a flat portion in the middle for this very purpose. They cradle you and encourage you to stay on your side as you sleep, giving both the back and belly support many need.

4. Leg Support

Oh boy, did I have some terrible hip pain when I was pregnant! My hips ached so much through the day, I ended up hardly ever sitting down while I was at work. During the night, it made it so hard to sleep, until I started using pillows between my legs. At first, I would just put one between my thighs, then one night it slid down so it was between my knees and my thighs and I realized what I had been missing. After that, I used a body pillow to support my knees and ankles. That 4full leg support that kept my legs horizontal made a difference in my hip pain and made it easier for me to sleep. When you support only the upper or lower parts of your legs, you still end up with odd angles on your joints. Your hips, especially if this is your first late-term pregnancy, are going through some changes to prepare for childbirth, and those changes can cause some intense discomfort for some women. Relieving the strain on the hips helps to lessen that discomfort.

5. Propped Up

Those who are strongly inclined to sleep on their backs are usually the ones to suffer the most during nighttime pregnancy. There really is no way around the health risks that the added weight can cause to you and your little one. One way to you may be able to satisfy this need is to utilize a 5reclining position to sleep. This doesn’t mean you can sleep in a reclining chair that leans all the way back so that you’re almost flat again. This means mostly upright. A good neck support pillow will help to alleviate any neck strain and creating almost a nest around you can actually feel quite comfortable. This position is also quite helpful for those who have the dreaded pregnancy heartburn. If you are more comfortable sleeping on your side and suffer from heartburn, you can still 6prop your upper half up a bit to also help. Hormonal shifts cause muscle relaxation, which is what brings on the heartburn, so elevating your upper body helps to reduce the acid reflux.

6. Head Support

As discussed, heartburn is a real problem for many pregnant women and elevating your head and shoulders helps, but some women just need proper head support in general. For many who have wider shoulders, sleeping on their side has always been a problem in the area of neck support. When you’re pregnant and need to sleep on your side, you may want to look into finding the right way to keep your head from bending uncomfortably. There are firmer pillows, but they might not be enough. Pillows that are concave on both sides allow you to put your arm up underneath, giving you better support for your neck and less strain on your shoulders. Also, don’t hesitate to use more than one pillow at a time. This is another situation where a full-body style pillow can come in handy. You can have that all over support and use your regular pillow to double up the height under your head.

7. Stomach Sleeping

You may think those who always sleep on their stomach would be in the same boat as the back sleepers, but fortunately for the belly floppers, there are some options to still sleep like they always do. I know we already established that you should be sleeping on your side, preferably the left. You may be wondering how anyone could possibly sleep on their belly with a big bump in the way. The answer is once again pillows. There are now several pillows, some firm foam and some inflatable, that are designed with an open space or dip to allow your belly to fit into it. Unlike pregnancy sleeping on your back, there are 7no dangerous disadvantages to sleeping on your belly except that it would be extremely difficult and uncomfortable while in later stages. These new pillows allow you to continue pregnancy sleeping on your belly as it grows. There are some downfalls, such as most of these pillows are practically useless when you’re no longer being pregnant since they don’t make good nursing pillows and may not be baby safe, and they may take up too much bed space if you share a bed, but it’s still amazing that we are still progressing towards innovative ways to help pregnant women sleep better.

Tossing and turning throughout the night is sometimes unavoidable, and you are guaranteed to have to get up a few times as there’s pressure on your bladder and hormones interfering with the chemicals that help you sleep, but during those moments when you don’t need to urinate and you’re not wide awake despite feeling completely exhausted, you can make yourself more comfortable. You can still sleep, you simply need to take into account the changes your body has gone through and accommodate those changes in the best way for you. From personal experience, using multiple pillows worked best for me, as I found I needed support in different places depending on what I did throughout the day. Find what works best for you. Many women really love the all-around comfort of the c-pillows or u-pillows. Some really like the one-sided support of a body pillow. Some love wedges. Each of us is different in how our bodies carry our babies and how we are shaped, before and after pregnancy. Try different things until you find what makes you the most comfortable.