Feeling your baby move inside you is something mommies can barely wait for. It doesn’t even matter if it’s not your firstborn. From when you are barely three months pregnant, you are so sure that you just felt him squirm, even though this is quite far from reality. It is extremely natural to eagerly await the first kick as it is palpable proof that your baby is alive, safe, and well. This is in fact, the main reason why feeling your little one squirm inside you is celebrated majorly by mommies across the world.
What do baby movements feel like?
To be able to distinguish what you feel as viable signs of quickening, you need to know what to expect. The British author Madeline Wickham once summarized the whole experience using a few choice words- “It’s so fre aky, like having an al ien inside you!”
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What exactly you feel depends on what your baby is up to at that moment. Some babies tend to be more active than others, second-time mothers can vouch for this. Also, depending on their stage of growth, the level of activity will increase or decrease accordingly. The frequency of movements increases as the pregnancy progresses.
These movements start as gentle ones, you might initially just feel a flutter or a tiny tumble. But as your baby gets stronger and more active, they start kicking and elbowing you way too often. Watch out for kicks aimed at your ribs in the third trimester, these are going to hurt a bit for real.
When do you start feeling baby movements?
If this is your first pregnancy, your excited anxiousness is all too relatable but some things are definitely worth the wait. You will start to sense your baby moving inside you around the fifth month of your pregnancy (20 weeks).
This phenomenon is called quickening and this is an important milestone during pregnancy. If you don’t start to feel quickening even by the 23rd week, it might be advisable to consult with your obstetrician to understand what’s going on. It is also important to seek help if you suddenly feel that your baby’s movements have decreased in frequency or vigor.
If you have been pregnant more than once, you will start noticing early signs of baby movement around the 16th to 18th weeks. You are quite the expert now and your body takes note of the telltale signs. Initially, the movements are quite light and delightful, but the strength and frequency of these kicks and jabs progressively increase throughout the pregnancy.
How often do you feel your baby moving?
You begin to appreciate regular and increasingly frequent movements around the 24th week, starting with mild ones around the 18th to 20th week. As most mommies are generally unlucky when it comes to this, your baby’s sleep-wake cycle has high chances of being the exact opposite of yours which means they get most busy when you are trying to catch up on some sleep.
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You will appreciate regular baby movements for up to an hour or even more at times (anywhere between 20 to 40 minutes most often). When you are carrying about your day-to-day work, you might not be able to appreciate this fully. As your pregnancy progresses, the frequency of movements increase and the type of movements change. You will feel them actively move even during labor.
Over time, you will be able to identify a pattern that is unique to your baby. You only need to worry if you notice anything that is deviating from this pattern significantly.