Night 19 of enforced back sleeping and I'm coming apart. What actually worked for you?

#1Helen W.(Joined Apr 2026 · 4 posts)May 11, 2026, 11:52 pm

It's nearly midnight and I'm awake, again, which tells you why I'm here.

Right hip, 19 days ago. Daytimes are honestly going well, I'm around the house on one crutch and the pain is manageable. But I have been a side sleeper for fifty years and being parked on my back with a pillow between my knees is defeating me. I get off to sleep alright and then I'm wide awake at 3am, hot, flat, staring at the ceiling like a beached thing. Averaging maybe five broken hours. Everything is worse when you're this tired.

And I'll admit the rest of it while I'm here: on day 12 I sat on the edge of the bed and cried over absolutely nothing. A sock, technically. Nobody warned me about that bit.

So, veterans: what actually got you through the back-sleeping weeks? Pillow arrangements, routines, anything. And how long before you were allowed onto your side, if that's even a thing I should ask about yet.

#2gardeninggwen(Joined Jan 2025 · 29 posts)May 12, 2026, 7:31 am

Helen, the 3am beached-thing stage, I remember it vividly, and I promise it's a stage.

What got me through, in order of discovery. A wedge pillow under my knees, which took the strain off my lower back, the flatness was half my problem and the wedge fixed more of it than the knee pillow did. A rolled towel alongside my operated thigh, which stopped the leg drifting outward while I slept, my physio suggested that one. And moving to the middle of the bed so I stopped unconsciously trying to curl toward my usual edge. Sounds daft, worked.

For the 3am wakings I gave up fighting and made them nice instead: podcasts queued up, one earphone in, lights off. Falling back asleep to someone droning about canal history beats lying there doing recovery maths.

And the day 12 cry, oh, the day 12 cry. Mine was day 10 and it was over a casserole. That fortnight is the ambush: the operation glow wears off, the visitors stop coming, and the finish line still looks miles away. Week four felt completely different, for what it's worth. Hold on.

#3trev_lefthip(Joined Jul 2025 · 13 posts)May 12, 2026, 12:46 pm

Slept in the recliner for five weeks. Zero shame. Best sleep of my recovery, told my surgeon at the six week check and he said half his patients do it and don't admit it.

#4moira1963(Joined Oct 2025 · 8 posts)May 13, 2026, 9:09 pm

Helen W. said:

on day 12 I sat on the edge of the bed and cried over absolutely nothing. A sock, technically.

Mine was a jar of pickled onions I couldn't open. Day 13. I stood in the kitchen and wept like the jar had insulted my late mother.

Genuinely though, the second week dip deserves its own leaflet. Week one you're a hero, everyone's ringing, you're high on relief. Week two the painkillers are being stepped down, the house is quiet, you can't do anything useful, and your brain decides NOW is the time to audit your whole life at 3am. It lifted for me around the end of week three, almost overnight. The sleep improving and the mood improving turned out to be the same thing wearing two coats.

#5Haidee MarshAdmin(Joined Aug 2024 · 268 posts)May 14, 2026, 9:37 am

Helen, if you read one thing tonight instead of the ceiling, make it sleeping after a hip replacement. It's my own night-by-night account of exactly where you are, the pillow arrangements included, and I wrote most of it at the hour you posted, so it's honest.

From my diary, since you asked how long it lasts: my notes from days 10 to 16 are the bleakest of the whole recovery, worse than anything I wrote about pain, and by week five I was sleeping in stretches I'd have paid money for in week three. The dip you and Moira are describing was, for me, the lowest floor of the entire thing. It was also the last low floor.

On the side-sleeping question I'm going to be strict, lovingly: that one is for your surgical team at your six week check, not for us. It depends on how your operation was done and what precautions you were given, and readers here were cleared at genuinely different times. I was given the all-clear at six weeks, on the un-operated side first with a pillow, but that was my hip and my surgeon. Ask about yours before you try anything, please.

#6Helen W.(Joined Apr 2026 · 4 posts)June 20, 2026, 10:14 pm

Reporting back because this thread got me through some bad nights. Six week check was a fortnight ago, team cleared me for sleeping on the good side with a pillow between my knees, and the first night I did it I could have wept again, happy version this time. Gwen's wedge is staying forever though.

And the dip lifted exactly as Moira described, end of week three, almost overnight. If you've found this thread at 3am in your second week: it isn't you, it's the fortnight. It passes.