If you’re at the beginning of your pregnancy, you may be wondering how to survive the first trimester. Whether you’re experiencing morning sickness or not, the first trimester is challenging because you’re adjusting to a new lifestyle, nobody can “see” you’re pregnant, and life changes SO fast. Between my first trimester with Hope, my first trimester with Lachlan, and my first trimester with our twins, I’ve learned a thing or two about surviving the exhaustion, nausea, and body changes!
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Rest when you can
No matter what, rest when you can and when you need to in order to survive the first trimester. If you have to go into work or you have another little one running around the house, find time to sit and relax, but then go to bed early. If you’re not able to fall asleep early, at least get ready for bed and crawl in so when your exhaustion hits, you can just snuggle in and be asleep in 2.5 seconds. I find that I get so exhausted during the first trimester that everything seems extremely daunting, even when it’s as simple as getting ready for bed, so I plan ahead.
Eat what you can
Eat whenever you can and as healthy as you can. But if you aren’t hungry or you’re craving french fries, listen to that instinct. I felt okay in the mornings and then got worse as the day went on, so I would eat a healthy breakfast, as healthy of lunch as I could, and then would just eat whatever I could at night. Sometimes I would eat something at 3:00 or 4:00 in the afternoon and then couldn’t manage to eat anything the rest of the day. Sometimes I would drink smoothies for dinner. Moral of the story, eat what you can whenever you can (even if it’s a bag of Doritos’s at 11pm – been there ??♀️).
Pro tip: Snacks are also your best friend. Grab an apple, small snack bags, or a smoothie before you get too hungry. I had to be careful not to eat too much or too little because both were a trigger for my nausea.
Hydrate, hydrate, hydrate
Drink more water than you’ve ever drunk in your life. When you’re pregnant, you need more than you typically do, so grab a large cup, this one is my favorite, and fill them up with ice water and drink at least 3-4 of them every day. I recommend using a straw too! I drink so much more water if it’s from a straw. If you’re used to enjoying cocktails, find a mocktail you’ll enjoy. Every night I poured myself a glass of cold sparkling water and sipped on it. (Sparkling water is hydrating, too!!) And if we were out to eat, I love to order a club soda with lemon and lime (and maybe even a splash of cranberry). If you let the bartender know that you’re pregnant, they’ll often make you a fun mocktail to enjoy as well.
Pro tip: When it sounds good, add some flavor to your water. Simply add some lemon slices, lime slices, or mint leaves to your water. YUM.
Take your prenatal vitamins at night
Instead of trying to swallow everything in the morning, I like to take my vitamins at night, right before I go to bed. It is a lot easier for me. So basically, take your prenatal vitamins whenever it is easiest for you! And take them with juice if that helps. Here’s what I’ve taken, and enjoyed, my last two pregnancies.
Taking B-6 and Unisom at night has also helped improve my morning sickness. This was recommended to me by my OB, but be sure to ask yours before you take anything new.
Reset your house every night before you stop
In order to make each day as easy as possible for me, I like to do a household reset while I still have energy. This means I wipe down all of our counters, load our dishwasher, and pick up the house. It’s so helpful because when I wake up, everything is ready to go for another day and I’m not cleaning up from the night before. This helps start the day off well and if you feel horrible in the morning, it can make all the difference!
Plan your registry and design your nursery
While you’re adjusting to this new normal, one fun thing you can do while you’re laying on the couch or in bed is to start planning your registry and designing your nursery. If I was able to look at a laptop screen without feeling sick, I loved sitting and planning for our future. It adds something fun to do while feeling crappy and always made me smile.
Travel Themed Nursery Prints | Trains, Planes, Tractors, Buses, + Cars
These prints are travel-inspired and have a little bit of everything! Pick and choose the ones you want to get printed and framed. They come in a PDF and JPEG format and are sized at 9×9″. To resize them, just place each JPEG into a Powerpoint slide (sized to your needs) and export the slides as a JPEG. Then you can order them on your favorite printing sight.
These signs look great in a nursery, playroom, or kid’s room and are full of gender neutral, playful colors.
Images included are listed below.
Take weekly bump photos
You can never start too early, I promise. I love looking back at these weekly photos and seeing how I was feeling and what was happening. Then it’s fun to compare one pregnancy to another and compare and contrast. In my Weekly Pregnancy Bump Signs, I show you how to take a photo without a poster and then add it in digitally.
Weekly Pregnancy Bump Photos | Printable and Editable
Share your pregnancy whenever you’re ready
Waiting to announce your pregnancy until after the first trimester is an extremely antiquated tradition. Its purpose is to prevent you from having to share that you lost a baby if a miscarriage were to occur. But miscarriage is extremely common and is not something you should feel like you have to hide if you don’t want to. So share when you’re ready and when it feels good to you! We’ve shared pregnancies at 8 weeks, at 15 weeks, and at 14 weeks. Each pregnancy is different and you just need to trust your gut.
