His days and nights may be switched

[MamitaM]

My son is 3 weeks old and we co-sleep. I think his days and nights might be backwards and I'd like to change this. I know babies need to sleep as much as they can and I hate to wake a sleeping baby,but the past 3 nights he's been awake for longer periods of time when Mama needs to sleep. He'll nurse a little,but mainly he wants to "talk". He takes long naps in the day and my ped suggested that I don't let him have his 4 hour day time naps.

How can I keep him for longer times in the day time? Does it matter if his days and nights are mixed up? I don't work so I don't have to wake early for work or school. I only wake when he tells me he needs to eat really unless we have some plans to go somewhere early so I can sleep in and take naps.

[lach]

That's how they all come out It pretty much sucks. That's why everyone says "sleep when the baby sleeps!" Something which I was never able to do, personally. My circadian rhythms are too firm, or something: I just couldn't sleep during the day. I really wanted to sleep at night, though! And that's when both kids were awake and ready to play. Even DS, who was the world's sleepiest baby and went 6 hour stretches from the day he was born. Somehow, those 6 hours NEVER fell between the hours of, say, 10pm and 7am.

Some people find it helpful to establish a bedtime routine right away. Even though they'll obviously be waking up again in 2 hours, the idea is that eventually they will "get" that this put-down is different from other put-downs and they should sleep a longer stretch here. Bedtime can be something like dimming the lights, bath, massage, story, feeding, lullaby. I never really got around to doing this, but it's advice that I've read fairly often so I thought I'd pass it along.

Really all you can do is wait it out. They don't really get a circadian rhythm of their own until about 4 months, though sometimes you can kinda nudge their sleep patterns in the right direction. The one thing that I would be very careful about is keeping the baby awake during the day in the hopes that he'll be more tired at night. That can lead to the baby being so overtired that his sleep gets even worse.

I found the book Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child extremely helpful for the newborn period. He explains all of the research about infant sleep, warns against letting the baby get overtired, offers advice about developing nap patterns, etc. He recommends CIO for older babies, so IMO his advice for older kids is touch and go. But I thought the newborn advice was invaluable, and it's definitely the best researched book about sleep I've read.

[chattyprincess]

My first dd had this problem, this time around I started out waking dd2 every 2 hours to nurse, change the diaper and just generally change up from sleeping to doing something...Once about 10pm hit I would nurse her one last time and put her to "sleep" for the night, dim the lights, lie her down in her crib etc...This was different then duing the day when she falls asleep in the sling, in our arms etc. Then at night I don't wake her I would let her wake up and would nurse her/change her etc but I would make it really low key, low lighting, no talking or direct eye contact and try really hard not to stimulate her. Reswaddle her and try to get her back to sleep...this really seems to work well for us and I really agree with the previous poster about not purposely keeping them awake during the day. Dd1 needed to sleep during the day or she would NOTsleep well at night. I think the key during the day is to just make sure to not let them go long stretches without waking...

[ShanaV]

Sleeping in the afternoon with the baby makes being stuck awake with the baby at 2 or 4 am a whole helluva lot easier.

ETA: 3 weeks is still VERY young. Baby-baby. I think the day/night sleep pattern is normal and will improve with time and maturity!

[MamitaM]

Yeah,I also think he's pretty young and it's totally normal for him not to know when he should sleep or not. He just sleeps when his body tells him too. On another forum in my DDC there a lot of the women are so concerned about their newborns night and day being mixed up. They tell me they try and keep their baby awake in the day and I have no clue how this is done. How the heck do you keep a baby awake? lol I'm not sure why the pedi was concerned about it.

[JTA Mom]

Some of it is definitely baby dependent.

This little one likes to sleep, ds2 didn't.

However, what I do is dress him lightly during the day. This way he sleeps, but not deeply. Also, when he does get up, I talk to him, burp him, turn him to watch his brother, etc. Pretty much, make it interactive.

For night, I dress him warmer (at least another layer, usually a fleece sac on top of his clothes). I keep the room dark, and have a small light I turn on if I have problems latching him on, then turn it off as soon as he's latched. He seems to get now that if it's dark, there's no interaction, it's quiet, he's warm, there's boob...leads to deeper sleep and he only wakes when pooping/wanting boob.

Ami

[lifeguard]

Ds was like this pretty much right at 3 weeks & it was really frustrating. I tried to sleep when he did. During the day I tried to keep things noisy & all the curtains open so it was bright & at night I would keep the lights ultra low & everything quiet. I don't believe any of it mattered. Literally, overnight he switched to a more normal rhythm.

[Mom2M]

I used to make sure we got outside for a walk a few times during the day and then kept things quiet at night with very dim light. It worked even though she was asleep for the walks a lot of times, maybe just being outside in the light helped.

[SeattleRain]

Originally Posted by lach

Some people find it helpful to establish a bedtime routine right away. Even though they'll obviously be waking up again in 2 hours, the idea is that eventually they will "get" that this put-down is different from other put-downs and they should sleep a longer stretch here. Bedtime can be something like dimming the lights, bath, massage, story, feeding, lullaby. I never really got around to doing this, but it's advice that I've read fairly often so I thought I'd pass it along.

Really all you can do is wait it out. They don't really get a circadian rhythm of their own until about 4 months, though sometimes you can kinda nudge their sleep patterns in the right direction. The one thing that I would be very careful about is keeping the baby awake during the day in the hopes that he'll be more tired at night. That can lead to the baby being so overtired that his sleep gets even worse.

I found the book Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child extremely helpful for the newborn period. He explains all of the research about infant sleep, warns against letting the baby get overtired, offers advice about developing nap patterns, etc. He recommends CIO for older babies, so IMO his advice for older kids is touch and go. But I thought the newborn advice was invaluable, and it's definitely the best researched book about sleep I've read.

I agree with all of this. I started right off the bat creating a bedtime routine and it's been very helpful for me. Its also helped me figure out what baby likes and what he doesn't.

Try keeping the baby stimulated during the day. I agree with keeping baby a little lighter dressed, take them out for a brisk walk. Interact with her.

I also really, really liked Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Baby. Though he definitely pushes CIO as the most "effective" method, he does have other tracks you can follow. Dr. Weissbluth is an expert in infant sleep so a lot of his book is really just explaining how infant sleep works. What you do with that information is your own perogative.

[MamitaM]

My son doesn't seem to mind noise! Really the other night in the middle of nursing the fore alarm went off and we stood in the hall to see what was going on,he curled up in my arms and fell asleep in the middle of it all! He didn't seem to be bothered by it at all.

I do try and turn the lights lower at bed time though and I' just trying to see what routine will work for us.

Last night was much better. He was awake for a little while at first,but just looked at me and I talked to him then he fell asleep. He woke up 2-3 times maybe for some milkies and he was quiet and happy.

[SeattleRain]

Originally Posted by MamitaM

My son doesn't seem to mind noise! Really the other night in the middle of nursing the fore alarm went off and we stood in the hall to see what was going on,he curled up in my arms and fell asleep in the middle of it all! He didn't seem to be bothered by it at all.

I do try and turn the lights lower at bed time though and I' just trying to see what routine will work for us.

Last night was much better. He was awake for a little while at first,but just looked at me and I talked to him then he fell asleep. He woke up 2-3 times maybe for some milkies and he was quiet and happy.

So at 3 weeks old they do have a tendancy to fall asleep easily regardless of their setting, but they also can fal asleep easily due to overstimulation like very loud sounds. My son always does that at Costco.

[rhiOrion]

My DD had her nights and days confused for a couple of months. She would SCREAM ALL NIGHT LONG and then pass out at 6am as soon as the sun came up.

One thing that you can try is to keep the lights on, blinds open, etc during the day. Keep things much darker in the evening. Take her outside in the morning to get some sunshine.

It's probably going to be a gradual change. I have no idea when my DD started finally sleeping at night, but one day I realized that I hadn't had to get up in the middle of the night in a while- even less deal with a screaming newborn all night long.