SECOND TRIMESTER FAVORITES | What Things I Love + Enjoy During The 2nd Trimester!

Hi guys, my name is Megan. Welcome to my channel. Today I'm going to talk about my second trimester favorites. Now the second trimester is usually the easiest time during pregnancy. The first trimester you usually have a lot of nausea, and the third trimester you're just massive and huge and uncomfortable, but second trimester is usually when most women feel best. So there's not really any things that you like have to have for the second trimester, but there are a lot of things that do make it easier and a lot of things that I have really been enjoying and I hope that are helpful for you guys as well. So let's get right into this list. So the first thing on the list is a body pillow. These are so handy because you are starting to get a little bit big in your second trimester and you might be starting to have a little bit of a hard time sleeping, and so a body pillow is just so amazing. You can prop your belly up if you're laying on your side, you can put it between your legs if you're having hip discomfort, and there's just like so many ways you can use it. I absolutely love having a body pillow. I actually don't have one for this pregnancy yet. I am going to get one very soon because I am in my second trimester now and I'm feeling like I need one. I'm feeling a little bit uncomfortable, but I had one for Sophia's pregnancy, and I actually ended up having to throw it out after her pregnancy because somehow I got it bloody during her birth because we had a home birth, and a lot of the time I labored in bed and it just got dirty, and so I decided that I would just start fresh with a new body pillow when I got pregnant the next time. So I need to order another body pillow. There's several different kinds. Last time I just had a big long straight one. I was actually thinking about getting the ones that are like u-shaped, and then you can like put it around your body. It just seems like really nice, but we'll see. I'll look on Amazon and see which ones look the best, and if I find one that I ended up buying, I will link it below so you guys can see that as well. The next thing on the list are maternity leggings and jeans. Now with Sophia's pregnancy, I just kind of got by with regular jeans until I was in my third trimester, and I so wish I had done that because maternity jeans are amazing. I bought some from Motherhood Maternity. These are indigo blue brand jeans, and they have the big belly panel, and a lot of people think that maternity jeans aren't flattering, but the more modern maternity jeans actually are very cute, very stylish, and they're so comfortable. It just feels so much better on your belly, and they are normally stretchy, so I don't feel like I'm going to rip them every time I bend over. I also have some really nice maternity leggings that I'm actually wearing right now. They're just super comfortable. I like to wear them with long shirts, and I pretty much live in these leggings near the end of my pregnancy because I'm just staying home, especially I just have my leggings on, so definitely one of my favorites. The next thing are comfy bras, and I bought some really nice nursing bras when I was pregnant with Sophia around this time in my second trimester, and I kind of wish I hadn't spent the money on them because my favorite bras for pregnancy and for breastfeeding even are just some Calvin Klein bras. They're just, they have no underwire. They're really stretchy, and when I'm breastfeeding, I just pull one side down and feed her, and then I pull it back up, and because they're so stretchy, it's not uncomfortable to do that. It works out really, really well, so I've got a whole bunch of Calvin Klein bras. I do have one nursing bra that I really like. This one has no underwire, which I hate underwire. Let's just say I never, ever, ever wear my nursing bra that has underwire. It's just really uncomfortable, and I don't like it at all, and if it doesn't have underwire, even if my boobs get really big, which they will when I'm breastfeeding, and you know, they just fluctuate a lot in size. This one, even though it's a specific size, because it doesn't have an underwire, it's a lot more flexible in size, and so are the Calvin Klein bras. So this is the only actual nursing bra that I like, and it's only because it's like really soft and comfortable and has no underwire, but having these snaps, I found was just really not necessary and just kind of more annoying, and a lot of times, I ended up just pulling it down without un-snapping it anyway, just because when you've got a baby who's hungry, you just don't feel like fiddling with snaps. So the next thing is a large and comfy oversized sweater. I have just a really cute mustard orange cardigan here, and I live in comfy sweaters. Pretty much my maternity leggings and a comfy sweater, and I am good to go. I am all about comfort in pregnancy, and so big comfy sweaters are so nice, and even if they don't look very nice, like my husband has these big huge black Carhartt sweaters that are like pullover, and I love wearing them, even though they're not very flattering on me, like they're not cute sweaters, but they're so comfortable, and I love wearing them so much. The next thing on the list is peppermint tea. With this pregnancy, my nausea didn't go away right when I hit the second trimester like it did with Sophia's pregnancy, and I found the best way to relieve nausea was drinking peppermint tea, and so I have continued to drink peppermint tea into my second trimester, and even though I don't have nausea right now, I've been craving peppermint tea so much, and so I'm just drinking as much of it as I want, because I know once I start breastfeeding, I won't be able to drink this anymore, because it reduces milk supply. So peppermint tea has been a favorite during the second trimester, and it was like a must-have during the first trimester, so. And then also just any kind of tea that you're enjoying, like this one is a really nice calming tea. It has organic chamomile, lemon balm, and lavender, so it's just really nice and calming. I love drinking a cup of this right before bed if I just want, feel like I want something extra, like just a hot drink that's not gonna like caffeinate me, so I really love this one. And then of course, obviously my pregnancy. I have a video on how to make this. It has red raspberry leaf, and nettle, and alfalfa, and chamomile, and all these things that are just amazing to take during pregnancy, for various reasons I go into detail in that other video, but I try to take two cups of this every day. So I'm generally drinking this just kind of over the day, and then sometime in the evening, I will drink something else. But with this pregnancy, I have been loving teas. I still drink my coffee usually in the morning, but then as it gets further into the afternoon and evening, I switch to tea, and I have just been enjoying it so much. The next thing on the list is a belly lotion, and now this isn't to prevent stretch marks per se, because I already got stretch marks no matter. I slathered on so much lotion when I was pregnant with Sophia, and I still got stretch marks, and they're already there, so I'm not worried about preventing them this time, because I already got them, and I love my stretch marks. That might seem weird, but I'm proud of my stretch marks. So this lotion is only to help moisturize the skin, because it's going to start stretching, and I found that in Sophia's pregnancy when I didn't put enough lotion on, and it would stretch, and it would dry out, and it would be so itchy, so I'm starting out early with putting this on. It doesn't feel like it's too stretched right now, but I know that it will, and I know that if it's very well moisturized before it gets to that point, it might not get as itchy. So I make my own belly lotion. It has shea butter and coconut oil, beeswax, and vitamin E oil, and I think lavender and orange essential oil, so it smells amazing, and it's so good for your skin. I like making my own so that I know it has healthy ingredients, and I am a DIY addict, so I pretty much make all of our own things. I have a blog post with this recipe, and I will link it down below. The next thing is something that's too big for me to show you on the screen, but I'll put an overlay of it, is an exercise ball, and I didn't have one with Sophia's pregnancy, but I decided that I would really enjoy one with this one, and it's just so comfortable, mostly for just sitting on, and you can just open up your pelvis more when you're sitting on an exercise ball versus just in a chair where your legs are closed together, and so it's been really helping with my hip flexibility during this pregnancy. I've noticed my hips aren't quite stiff as if I would just sit in a chair all the time. It also just really feels nice on my joints if I can just like sit on something squishy and bounce a little bit. It's going to be possibly nice to have during labor if I want to sit on something with my pelvis more open and bounce, and so I've heard a lot of great things about having an exercise ball during pregnancy. It has been really nice. The next thing is a prenatal. I use this Innate brand Baby and Me multivitamin. This is a plant-based prenatal vitamin, so this is for during pregnancy and also after. I'm going to continue to take this probably the entire time I'm breastfeeding. With Sophia's pregnancy, I took the Pure Encapsulations brand prenatal, which is also a really, really great one, but I noticed that when I switched over to this one during this pregnancy, I feel so much better for some reason. This one just really is exactly what I need, and I can definitely tell I have way more energy when I remember to take this, which is not always every day because I have pregnancy brain, but I have absolutely been loving this. It just helps with my energy levels and feeling good, and also this calm magnesium drink has been amazing. I can't recommend this enough. I've had the worst muscle cramps during this pregnancy, and also round ligament cramps, which is a really normal pregnancy symptom, and this just helps so, so much with cramps. I get a lot of racks and kicks during my pregnancy, and this helps them not be as uncomfortable or annoying. I try to take this every day, and if I skip a day, I notice. Like that next night, I get a terrible leg cramp, and it's just awful, and I never really am someone who's prone to have muscle cramps like that, but during this pregnancy, I have been cramping up like terrible, and so this has just been so, so helpful. This is the cherry flavor, and they also have a lemon raspberry flavor, and they taste great. They're easy to drink, and so if you have any trouble with muscle cramps or even joint pain or different things like that, try taking a magnesium supplement, and the next thing is a lip balm, and I can't show you my lip balm because my daughter found it and pulled away with it and hid it somewhere, and I can't for the life of me find it, and it's been annoying me like crazy because my lips are so dry, but with this pregnancy, I've had the worst stuffy nose. It's like I've had a cold for like three months straight, and so I've been breathing through my mouth a lot, and it just dries my lips out so bad, and plus it's winter, and it's very low humidity in our house, and so lip balm has been so nice to have. I put it on every night when I go to bed, and by the morning, my lips feel so much better. The one that I've been using that my daughter Sophia lost is actually a homemade dandelion lip balm. I picked a bunch of dandelions when they were looming in the spring, and I dried them for a few days, and then I infused them into olive oil and then used that dandelion-infused olive oil with some beeswax and coconut oil and shea butter, and then I also put some lavender essential oil in it, and it is amazing. It works so well. It hydrates my lips so fast. The other one that I really love that I actually used in my first trimester because I couldn't really handle the lavender smell as much in my first trimester when I was really nauseated all the time was a homemade peppermint lip balm. So that one is just a little more simple. It didn't have the dandelion. I just used coconut oil, beeswax, shea butter, and a bunch of peppermint essential oil, and it just smells amazing. It feels like really soothing and cooling on your lips. The next thing is my stainless steel water bottle. I have a hard time remembering to drink enough water, and it's really important to drink enough water during pregnancy. During pregnancy, your blood volume increases a lot, and so you need a lot of water to help your body increase your blood volume and also to build up your milk supply and just tons of stuff. Water is really important to drink during pregnancy and avoid breastfeeding. So I love having a stainless steel water bottle that if I have a water bottle that looks nice and it's just out and it's only for water, it helps me remember to drink it more because I see it sitting there and I'm like, oh, I need to make some more water. When I was just using glasses in our cabinet, I would lose my glass somewhere. It would blend in with all the other glasses sitting around, and I would just not remember to drink the water. But having a dedicated water bottle that looks nice, I love the stainless steel, so none of the plastic is going to leach into my water. If you get a plastic one, try to make sure that it's EPA-free plastic, but this has definitely helped a lot with my water intake. The next thing is actually a podcast, and I listened to this podcast through Sophia's entire pregnancy. They have like hundreds of podcasts or something, and I listened to all of them while I was pregnant with Sophia. I was addicted to their podcasts, but it's called Indie Birth Podcast, and they actually do free births or unassisted births where no one's there, they don't have a midwife. Some of them do, but it's just like they have the most amazing birth stories and so much info on birth, and it just really helped me get educated and have a full knowledge of what was going to happen during birth so that I felt comfortable having a home birth before I got pregnant with Sophia. I was planning on having my first birth in a hospital, but then when I got pregnant with her, I decided I was having a home birth, and this just really helped me feel confident in that decision. And just like even if you're having a hospital birth, these podcasts are amazing to listen to just to get like more knowledge, and they've got amazing birth stories, and I can't recommend this podcast enough. It's so fun to listen to. I will link them down below. I'll try to find all these products and things I'm talking about and link them below if I can. The next one is a book, and it's called Natural Childbirth the Bradley Way, and when I had Sophia, I didn't quite remember to do all like the different positions and relaxation methods that they talked about in that book, but they talk a lot about just like physically what happens to your body when you're in labor, and so it just really helps like if you know what's happening to your uterus and how the muscles are tightening and just like all the things, like even if you're not planning on having a Bradley birth, it's got so much amazing info and knowledge that I highly recommend it, and this time, I'm going to try a lot harder to relax and actually do the things that they tell me to. Someone woke up from her nap before I was quite finished. So there's just one more thing that I've been really loving, and that is the Baby Center Pregnancy app. You can get email updates every week, and they tell you like this many weeks pregnant, and this is what's going on with the baby, and it's just it really helps because I am so scatterbrained that a lot of times the email that I get every week is the only way that I actually remember how many weeks pregnant I am, and it's just so fun to read about the baby and see like how they're developing that week, and so I really love that they send you email updates and all that stuff, so I love the Baby Center website and app. Yeah, did you have a good nap? So anyway, I hope you guys enjoyed this video, and it was helpful, and maybe gave you some ideas of things that might help you in your second trimester. The second trimester is definitely my favorite trimester. It's just so much easier than the first and the third, and so I'm just trying to soak it all up and enjoy it, even though this pregnancy has been so much harder than Sophia's was, but I know that the second trimester, even though it's harder than her second trimester, it's still gonna be easier than the third trimester. So I hope this video was helpful and entertaining. Thank you for watching, and I'll see you in my next video. Bye! Bye! Bye! Oh, you've got my phone! Bye! Bye!