[pinky]

My wonderful, placid 6 week old seems to have her days and nights hopelessly mixed up. She frequently sleeps most of the day and is then up until the wee hours of the morning, sleeping for a couple of hours and then ready to be awake and alert. She's asleep right now (9 p.m.) and will likely awaken at any moment and be up for 3 or 4 or even more hours.

Some days she has more awake time than others, and some nights she sleeps more than others, but I haven't been able to discern any relationship between the two.

I would love to sleep when she sleeps, and flex my schedule to hers, but I have an older dd that makes that more or less impossible. I think at this point there are typically about 4 hours out of 24 that both my girls are asleep.

I'd love any insight from anyone who's BTDT. My inclination is just to roll with it (my mantra is "this too shall pass") and wait for her to grow into a regular human pattern of sleeping--I generally found with my older daughter that trying to mess with her sleep invariably backfired. Even so, I can't help myself from wondering if there are things I can be doing to nudge things along. I try to make a point of making sure she is awake and nursing every 2 hours or so during the day--she isn't difficult to wake, but she often goes right back to sleep (a trick I wish I could transfer to the middle of the night!). I have tried (sometimes) to make evenings quiet and mellow to give her "okay, it's nighttime now" signals...but when she won't resettle at night eventually I have to get up and turn on the lights or I start to go batty.

Any thoughts?

thanks.

 

[bamamom]

I :yawning: hope this helps...At about 14 days old we started making sure there was a routine. It's not really that hard..we had feeding waketime then naptime. Waketime could be playing or swinging or just talking to her. In the evening, allow her to nurse to sleep. Then through the night nurse her to sleep. This really seems to help them get a grip on the difference between night and day. Sometimes newborns get stuck and can't get it in sync with the world. By making a difference in how her day goes and how night goes will soon help her get readjusted. Make sure you keep waking her to nurse, no more than three hours during the day and five hours at night should lapse between feedings. This will help protect your milk supply, although I must say I cheated on the night one and let her sleep 7 or 8 hours as a six or seven week old and up. By adjusting this way, all that good sleep will soon be reserved for nightime and naps for the day. She is obviously happy, you said she was placid. Good luck!!!