29 Weeks

Your pregnancy: 29 weeks

How your baby's growing:Your baby now weighs about 2 1/2 pounds (like a butternut squash) and is a tad over 15 inches long from head to heel. His muscles and lungs are continuing to mature, and his head is growing bigger to make room for his developing brain. To meet his increasing nutritional demands, you'll need plenty of protein, vitamins C, folic acid, and iron. And because his bones are soaking up lots of calcium, be sure to drink your milk (or find another good source of calcium, such as cheese, yogurt, or enriched orange juice). This trimester, about 250 milligrams of calcium are deposited in your baby's hardening skeleton each day.

And for Fun:
MotherHow are you sleeping at night? You probably sleep less soundly than you did before you were pregnant. This is normal but that is of not much use to you. Due to the tingling in your legs, your tiny bladder, your calf cramps, your stomach that flutters and your belly that gets in the way, not to mention your spouse thumping on you so you'll stop snoring, it is difficult to stay asleep throughout the entire night. You can usually get to sleep if you have found a comfortable position with all the pillows arranged around you, but sleeping through the night... forget it! Lying on your back doesn't work at all and turning is no pleasure either. Moreover, you sleep so lightly that anything will wake you up. Once you are awake it will take hours for you to doze off again - at least that's how it feels to you.

A kick in your bladder and you have to go to the bathroom again; it feels like your bladder is filling up all the time. And then it's hard to relax and go back to sleep. Do you frequently have weird, scary dreams also? More than usual? It's all part of the process. Unconsciously, you worry about how it will all go. Can you bring up a child and look after him, how will the expectant dad do and how will the other children - if there are any - react? Will trying to combine work and taking care of the baby be too much for you? You are confronted with worries and small problems, things that don't bother you at all during the day seem like huge obstacles at night.Try not to worry while you are lying awake and stew about the fact that you can't sleep. The human body needs only 3 to 4 hours deep sleep to sufficiently repair its cells. If you have slept during that time, it's just a matter of the so-called phase 1 and phase 2 sleep wherein dreams play the most important part. It's no wonder that you remember all your dreams because you are sleeping lighter than you did before your pregnancy.Sometimes it seems as if your sleep pattern is already changing so that once the baby is there you will be able to wake up when he needs you. Mother Nature has arranged that nicely.