I just couldn't have contemplated being up 3 or 4 times during the night before I was pregnant - I lived under the illusion that you had to have at least 7 hours undisturbed sleep in order to function the next day! Oh how wrong I was - by the time I was 37 weeks pregnant getting 2 hours in one stretch was an achievement! It is amazing how you do adapt to a different sleeping pattern and how you can function (to a certain extent!!) on much less sleep than you ever imagined possible!

"I found the 3rd Trimester particularly difficult due to lack of sleep while trying to work full time and also having a trapped nerve in my hip. Sleeping on an air bed helped the pain while sleeping and I went on maternity leave 8 weeks before baby was born as couldn't cope with being tired and public transport!"

"I had a nightmare 3 weeks at about 24 weeks pregnant when I was plagued with night cramps, sciatica and hip pain if I laid in bed for longer than 3 hours at a time. The nights became a round of propping myself up on various pillows, hot water bottles, lying with pillows between the legs, heated massage pads and lots of jumping out of bed to stretch my calves.

The midwife could offer very little in terms of advice on how to cope - just one of those things she said! I was getting to the end of my tether wondering how on earth I was going to cope with another 13 weeks of this when it did just seem to get slowly better! I still sleep with a pillow between my knees and get the odd cramp in my calf but nothing like back then.

The pillows and hot water bottles definately helped but more I think just accepting that lying there in agony wasn't going to help. I was much better getting up for an hour (even at 2.00am), having a drink or reading downstairs, and then coming back to bed when my legs had recovered a bit. I also tried to get an hour's rest around 4 o'clock in the afternoon as it made a huge difference to how I felt in the evening."

"I couldn't sleep as I was so big... I felt like I never slept!"