Backwards body clock

keano_afc

Greetings. Our little daughter was born a week ago today. So far she sleeps brilliantly....through the day. Since we brought her home we have to wake her for day feeds and she's generally out for the count when she's not being fed. Night time however, is the complete opposite. We give her a feed usually around 11pm, but afer tht she's awake pretty much every hour on the hour grazing through the night. My wife is finding it particularly hard, as she's breastfeeding. Anyone got any tips for what we can do to switch this around? Am I expecting too much too soon? We're first time parents, so any advice is grreatly appreciated.

January

Baby is still used to the way it was in the womb, mommy moving about was soothing so baby would sleep more during the day and when mommy slept baby came to life. Unfortunately that doesn't help us when baby is outside!!

What you can do is swaddle the baby, stops the startle reflex as baby is wrapped up nice and tight, also a slumber bear or white noise machine (one that mimics the sound of the heartbeat in the womb, more of a wooshing sound, could help.

Routine will come with time and breastfeeding babies do tend to feed more than bottle fed babies because you don't know how much they're getting at each feed.

Das Kitty

They do this for a small while to begin with. If it continues for another few weeks try feeding as much as possible during the day. Another thing that worked for us was bringing him out for a daily walk. We saw the benefit of that immediately.

oicherider

Hey,

Our 5 week old was like that at the start.. We used to wake her up for feeds too but stopped that as it had my wife nearly worn out!.. We just let her sleep when she wanted to sleep but at night time when she would wake up we would talk to her very little, feed her, keep the lights low, noise to a minimum, swaddle her and try to settle her back down.. After a while she got easier to get back to sleep and started going well through the night..

Swaddleing is a great job to be fair.. my lil one would kick up a fuss over it for about 1 or 2 minutes and next thing she was out cold!

Best of luck!

aniascor

Night feeds are an important part of building milk supply in the early weeks. As the feeding gets established, your baby will gradually start to sleep more at night. It's totally normal! (though I know that doesn't make it easier!)

I agree with the others - offering more feeds during the day can help spread out the night feeds. I never let my little guy go more than three hours between feeds in the early weeks during the day and then only fed him when he woke at night. That worked for us - but you just have to find what works for you and your baby.

Swaddling at night also worked well for us. Give it a try if you're not already.

aniascor

Oh I meant to say that another thing that worked for us was changing baby's nappy to wake him a bit in the middle of the night time feed. Then he would feed for another five or ten minutes. If I didn't do that he'd only feed for a short while before falling back asleep. And if I put him down straight away he'd be hungry and awake again in an hour or so.

nevaeh-2die-4

the same is happening to us, baby is almost 2 weeks old & he is fine through the day but from around 11-12 on he is wide awake...he won’t take to his cot in the bedroom either which is strange he has no bother sleeping in it when we have it down stairs...


he is awake now.....

no sign of sleep from him

keano_afc

We thought we were on a winner on Wednesday night when she slept perfectly. Had a feed at midnight, slept until 3am, had another feed and slept soundly until 8am. Finally we thought, she's getting used to night.

Last night she got us back for being so naiive. Was awake grazing from 1-5, and just wouldnt settle. She had slept regularly and soundly all through the day up until around 11pm. Then she got restless. My poor wife is exhausted, herself and baby were only just sleeping as I left for work this morning at 9am. My biggest fear now is that baby will sleep all day after tiring herself out last night and it'll be deja vu tonight.

She's still amazing despite all of this, I really dont wanna come across as anything other than a very grateful and delighted dad!