settling a newborn after a night feed?

[Shaw2be]

My baby is 10 days old and she has periods of being awake in the day. When she takes a daytime bottle she will only take 2oz and then fall asleep. We wake her every 3 hours to make sure she gets fed enough (as per midwife's advice) yet when it comes to the night time she will wake at 2am and take up to 4oz and then stay awake for quite a while. If we do settle her she has some sort of tilt switch where she knows she is being placed back in the moses basket!

My 2 questions are:
A) is this normal behaviour?
B) any advice on how to flip this behaviour so she wakes more in the day and settles at night?

Thanks!

[TanteRose]

congratulations on your newborn

totally normal behaviour - she will still have no idea if its day or night.
You can keep night time feeds low-key and low-lighting, but it really just takes time.

in a few weeks, she will adjust to day and night, but until then, its a case of holding her close and making sure she feels safe

[needadvice321]

Do you keep her in brightly lit room during day? That helps. Plus noise of radio or whatever. Don't put her down in dark quiet room during day.

[Orangedaisy]

Sounds pretty normal to me. One thing I read was taking baby into fresh air/light for a short period every day between 12and 4pm helps them adjust to day and night better.

[skiingcat]

I'm in the same boat as you and in the middle of my feed. Hopefully our babes will go back down shortly!

[avocadotoast]

Congrats OP.

I'm in a similar situation - DD is 19 days old, but she's breastfed. I find it really hard to get her to settle after night feeds. Right now she's on my chest and I'm waiting til she falls asleep to move her. Not ideal but if I put her straight time she'll be kicking and squealing!

[Weekipper]

My DD is 6 weeks and I found it settled after 2.5 weeks. Before that I started wrapping her in a blanket whilst feeding then putting her down in sane blanket so she wasn't cold, still had my smell and felt safe. It also prevented the starfish hands as we tilted her.

[Shaw2be]

Thanks for your help! Yes there's lots of noise and light during the day to the point I wondered if she was scared of the dark! I'm glad that this is normal and I'm glad you say it will calm down in a few weeks, I don't mind night feeds I just don't want to be up for 2 hours every time she's fed lol.

[Artandco]

Try laying her in cot awake and settling back with getting patting and face stroking. That way you don't have the issue of having to move here from arms to cot and waking as already in cot

[Lily1995]

I had this! My baby is 5 weeks old now and I think he is just starting to settle into a day/night routine (touch wood).
At night, it's really hard but I don't make eye contact with him while feeding. I try not to change his nappy, unless he's poo'd or it feels very full. I keep the lights dim by moving the lamp into the hall way. Keep very quiet. I also get up and feed him at the very first stir or sound from him, this way he hasn't quite woken up but is still awake enough to feed and then stays sleepy for the hole feed and then I can put him back into the Moses basket. He does grunt and stir when I put him back in, but it doesn't last long. Since he hit 8lbs8 I have put him in a grobag and that seems to have made a difference too, I think the temperature difference from my arms to Moses basket was waking him.
And then in the day, do the opposite. Keep it light, noisy and change at every feed.
I also don't put him in the Moses basket in the day, Moses basket is for night time only. Not sure if that's made a difference but he has deffinatly improved over the last few days.
He has a fussy time in the evening from about 8 to 10 so he is awake all that time and crying and not being very happy so I'm not sure if that wears him out aswell. Having said that I have read that trying to keep a baby awake in the day in the hopes he'll sleep better at night is patently untrue.
Remember though she's only 10 days so is still tiny and will want reassurance from you in the form of lots of cuddles.
But soon enough she should learn the difference between day and night and then have her periods of awake time more in the day.