How do you plan to follow the advice to sleep/rest during early labor? Or is that just a myth?

[IdentityCrisisMama]

Many of us are close (many have had their babies!).  I'm 38+ and am starting to think about early labor.  How on Earth does anyone seriously get rest?  I want to do that this time around but feel like I'll be a bundle of excited nerves.  Tips welcome!!  

[CookAMH]

I doubt I'll be able to sleep, but I don't plan on doing chores or walking.  Some like to walk to get labor going more, but my mw encourages me to rest. If it's at night, I'll stay in bed unless I start disturbing DH then I'll lay down in the living room and try to rest.

[minkajane]

If I think I'm in labor, I can tell you now I'd never be able to sleep! I'm a crocheter, so I'll probably crochet in front of the TV in very early labor, maybe shower depending on the time of day. Then when things get moving more, I'll start walking around to get things going.

[organicviolin]

been in early labor for 2 weeks now and I've rested, slept when I can, cooked, cleaned, run errands, played a concert, chased my 2 year old, walked, watched movies etc.  My issue is that the early labor just stays at early labor and doesn't progress.  I had the same thing with my 1st and I am over it.

[dayiscoming2006]

With my first labor, it lasted like 73 hours so yeah, they gave me a sleeping pill and sent me home to sleep because I was in too much pain otherwise. I got sent home a second night but couldn't sleep because they didn't send me with a sleeping pill that time and the pain was worse. That stunk. 

With my second, I went into labor first thing in the morning and was done by 6:45 PM so, didn't really need to sleep. I was in Romania and ended up having to walk to the next town over to catch a bus to a small city.

This time, I'm home and will be staying home hopefully. So, I guess it'll just depend what time of day it is, how much pain I'm in and if I am really tired or not. I imagine I may get too excited to sleep too though as I suspect this labor should not last a really long time. 

[acdmama]

I think it definitely depends on time of day.  If it's at night and you can truly sleep in between contractions, totally worth it.  If it's during the day, I'd go about my normal routine.  That will help things along if labor is truly progressing, and if it stops then you know it was false labor. I can't see just sitting around, it would drive me crazy not to have something else to focus on!

[LaurenAnanas]

I started with labor around 10 in the morning last time, which was great, as I don't think I'd have been able to sleep if it had come in the night!

I didn't sleep or anything, but it was really hard to concentrate on much else. I surrounded myself with pillows and half watched some daytime TV. Took the dog on a short walk. Browsed the internet. Took a shower. Ate some of the special snacks I'd been saving for labor.

This time, however, I have no idea, especially since we have a toddler! If it's daytime, Hubby will probably (try to) wrangle her into quiet activities or take her out. If it's night time and I can't sleep, I'll probably get up and try to make myself comfortable elsewhere in the house so Hubby and DD can get sleep.

[Comtessa]

With DD, I was trying to finish my degree before she was born, and I had one more paper to finish!  So when I started labor early in the morning, I decided to spend the day getting as much work done on the paper as I could.  It wasn't precisely "restful" in a mental sense, but at least I was physically resting, for a little while at least. 

My labor ended up being really, really long, though, and in hindsight, I STILL didn't rest enough.  I started having contractions around 6 am, and around 3 pm my birth team started showing up at my house.  I had said to all of them, "this is just a heads-up, don't rush over, I think this will still be a while," but nobody believed me and they all ran over here right away.  I should have waited to call them until more like 10 pm!  Having all those people around ended up making me nervous that things weren't moving fast enough, and so I started doing way too much activity to try and speed up my labor (which was going just fine without my help, just slow).  I think I was just worried about disappointing people and "making them wait for me."  And then my anxiety slowed down my labor even more, which made me try to do more and more crazy-heroic things to keep it moving, which just wore me out to the point of exhaustion.  I ended up transferring to the hospital just to get some rest. 

So this time, I'm going to do something very easy in early labor to ensure that I get more rest -- I'm just not going to TELL anyone that I'm in labor!  That way, they can't come over against my express wishes, and I can just rest until I really need someone else around, THEN I can call them.  Of course, now I have an active toddler to chase around, so perhaps I won't get as much rest as I'm hoping, but perhaps I can dig up a discreet friend somewhere who could take her for a while when I'm in early labor, without tipping off my mother or anyone else that it's time.  :)

[bleumoose]

I think resting doesn't have to be sitting still or trying to sleep. I think other activities can be restful, watching TV, reading a book, knitting/crocheting, easy household tasks. The point is not to tax yourself too much, and to conserve energy. If you're tired, or if it's the end of a long day, trying to be more sedentary is a good idea, but if it's early morning, I don't think there's a problem with being up and moving around as long as you're not trying to do too much. And of course, if early labor stretches on for hours into a whole day or more, obviously actual rest becomes more important.

With my second, I woke up around 2 with mild ctx, and by 230-300 I wasn't able to just laying there, due mostly to excitement not discomfort, and got up. I made a snack, unloaded/loaded the dishwasher, picked up some clutter. The contractions picked up frequency and intensity pretty rapidly and by 6 I had called the MWs. As they got a little more intense, I felt less like doing things and more like just sitting or standing still between them, so I got some rest at that point.