How Did The Bellybean Maternity Pillow Come to Be?

I was what you might refer to as an older mum when I became pregnant. I was thirty seven. I had wanted to get pregnant a lot sooner but a few different factors came into play but eventually I, or should I say, we did it! And we were over the moon.

I was lucky not to have bad morning sickness which can take the joy out of being pregnant. I did however have quite bad reflux in the evenings going to bed. So I would use two large head pillows to prop myself into a steeper angle for sleeping and I ate a lot of pregnancy safe ant-acid.

At about four months when my little bump got a bit lumpier I noticed my belly dragging down at night and this was slightly uncomfortable so I wedged a  pillow under my belly. Then I started to wake up on my back due to the pillow pushing me over. So I resorted to putting another pillow behind my back for stability. I now had four large pillows in the bed. I also wanted something between my legs because my hips were rolling forward and starting to get a bit achy. So the count was now five pillows and I couldn’t see or touch my partner anymore. The worst part was every time I rolled over or got up to go to the loo, (which was often!) I would have to re position my ‘pillow fort’.

The ‘pillow fort’ is a common scenario that pregnant women deal with in an attempt to get comfortable. The extra stuffing makes for restless sleep and can cause over heating; something you don’t need as your body will rise in temp during pregnancy all on its own. All that growing the baby is hard work and needs lots of energy exchange.

So I decided to do something about my pillow dilemma and made a weird double sided thing that vaguely resembles the Bellybean that is in existence now. I still have my first Bellybean, by the way.

This eliminated all the swapping, shuffling and swearing that had been a regular part of my sleeping ritual. I also found because my hips were more stable I didn’t always need a pillow between my legs. I occasionally used a small cushion which was easy to roll over with at night.

I realised this Bellybean was a god send and I started making them for my friends who were pregnant to see how they liked it. And well the rest is history…

Happy Sleeping!