Use our pregnancy calendar to see what’s happening in your pregnancy each week.

Tick, tock… it’s time to pile on the pounds. Here’s what you can expect from week twenty six of your pregnancy.

Your Baby:

Will put on around 6lb between now and your due date.

Should open their eyelids this week

Testes will be descending (if you’re having a boy that is!!)

You:

Should start planning antenatal classes if you’re thinking of attending

Are probably starting to find sleep uncomfortable

May start to suffer puffiness and swelling, especially if you’re on your feet a lot.

Week Twenty Six

There are varying accounts of what constitutes each trimester, some class week twenty six as the end of the second trimester, some wait until next week. Either way time is marching on. At this rate we’ll blink and the baby will be here.

It’s a good time to start thinking more about your labour and delivery plans, especially as your midwife appointments will start to increase in frequency and they’ll start talking about birth plans with a similar intensity to the way I talk about planning holidays. The birth plan is a funny concept, especially once you’ve laboured once before because you quickly learn that babies and bodies do not get the memo, even if you read that plan aloud to them nightly. But either way, it’s good to discuss where you hope to deliver, your thoughts on medications, who you want as your birth partner… little things like that. And whilst you’re at it, don’t forget to book any antenatal classes in!

There’s lots of fat gain going on from now on, with your baby going from around 2lb this week up to 7-8lbs (on average) at birth which is great for cute chubby newborn photos but less exciting for your ever-growing bump. Between now and the 40 week mark, you can expect your bump to grow just over a centimetre bigger every week. And you thought things were stretched now!

With everything growing, sleeping may become increasingly uncomfortable. With my first pregnancy, I reached this point far earlier. This time, I’m still in the ‘pass out from sheer exhaustion’ phase. There’s no waking me until the baby monitor starts jabbering away at 5.30 and I realise I’m one small cough away from wetting the bed. That said, this week has marked the arrival of pregnancy dreams. If you’ve not experienced them yet, you’re in for a treat. Vivid and often incredibly bizarre, it’s thought that they’re brought on by both the emotional and hormonal changes your body’s going through right now. In my case, this week we’ve had a wonderful amount of crime related ones; murders, burglaries, it’s probably my body’s way of telling me to put down the thrillers pre-bedtime.

Other fun things this week: clicky back/hip/pelvis. Ohhhh welcome back my old friend. Carry the toddler for all of two minutes, pay for it with hours of stiffness and clicking joints. I look like I’ve run a marathon or aged sixty years overnight. Both of which are probably quite true.

Missed a week? Catch up on week twenty five

Fancy sneaking ahead? Here’s week twenty seven