A pregnant Reddit user has vented her frustrations at well-meaning strangers who constantly tell her to get more sleep. User lovemeatmyworstbrook posted an open letter to all the people who have felt the need to offer her their irritating advice.
And you know what? It’s spot on.
She wrote:
Dear people who tell pregnant women to “sleep while you can…”
- That’s not how sleep works. It’s not like there’s a magical sleep bank run by sleep wizards where I can store up sleep credits and cash them in later.
- That’s also not how nostalgia works. I’ve never experienced new baby sleep deprivation, so I can’t enjoy not experiencing it now. I also can’t enjoy sleeping because while sleeping I am generally unconscious.
- Is your goal to provide pregnant women with useful knowledge? If so, have you ever encountered a pregnant woman who responded “Babies don’t sleep through the night? THIS IS BRAND NEW INFORMATION!!!”
- If the goal is not to provide new information, but rather to provide practical advice about magical sleep-banking, please see item 1.
- Because if your goal isn’t to give information or to provide practical advice, saying this is pretty much the equivalent of walking up to someone who is embarking on a big, terrifying, exciting, life altering new adventure and saying “Haha don’t forget it’s going to SUCK.” We know. We are all nervous and scared to death of how hard it will be. But we are also thrilled to meet our new children and anticipating the beautiful things. It would be much kinder to remind us of the beautiful things.
- Allow me to reassure you that there is absolutely nothing optional whatsoever about how much I sleep. I either nod off in front of the TV at 6:00pm, or am up at 3:00am in the morning with killer death heartburn from Mars trying to figure out which hip hurts less to sleep on. I have no control over either situation.
- Have you considered saying literally anything else? Because at this point I would really love if you said literally anything else.
On behalf of pregnant women everywhere,
Me.
Brilliant, no?
Naturally, other users were quick to share their own stories.
User Spannu wrote, "Three weeks away from my due date. Can't sleep for sh*t. If my bladder doesn't wake me, discomfort from carrying around a child's size bowling bowl that likes to have dance parties at 2:00am does."
User ifoundxaway added, "Most pregnant nights I was getting 2-3 hours TOTAL over the entire course of the night. I'd sleep for 15 minutes, wake up with heartburn, get up and pee, eat, go back to bed, can't get comfortable, attempt to toss and turn, have to pee again, on repeat, all night, ever night. And I didn't even have a cute baby to play with yet."
Maybe think twice before offering "helpful advice" to a pregnant woman...
What's the most annoying piece of advice you were given while pregnant?
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