Another exhausted mum

[VL]

My 3wk old baby has turned day into night and vice versa! Please advise! She sleeps rock solidly during the day. I was told to keep her awake during the day and feed her up so that she sleeps better at night. She is bottle fed. It takes up to 90mins to wake her and then she is very upset. I can only wake her when I change her nappy, which she howls at. I then feed her and she falls asleep again. She wakes up at night ravenous even though I have upped her feed amounts in the day. She feeds way to fast even though I stop to burp her a few times. She then falls asleep at the last mouthful. But after a few minutes when she appears to be fast asleep I put her in her moses basket and she wakes up within minutes and starts howling again. Swaddling her makes her even more upset and she tries to fight her way out of it. I am now holding her until she sleeps. With her crying I did try and leave her to cry once or twice hoping she would stop after 10 minutes or so, but she went on for about 40 minutes. I won?t be doing that again, it is so distressing. Am I expecting too much at such a young age? Is there a way to flip the day and night round again? I need sleep!

[kiskidee]

are you breast or bottlefeeding?

[ILikeToMoveItMoveIt]

Sorry, don't know anything about ff feeding. But to regulate the whole day/night thing, I made sure that when ds woke in the night for a feed I would keep the room dark and I would stay in bed with him (ie no stimulation whatsoever). In the early days I toughed it out staying in the dark bedroom while he was awake for 2-3 hours. It was v boring, but he got himself into sync within a week.

Some people may poo poo this, but I think it worked for us.

Good luck xx

[nannynz]

She is still quite young for there to be much order. I would suggest starting the same time every day with a feed and going from there. Also bring in a bed time routine, even if she doesn't sleep if she has bath, bottle, calmed time either in your arms with lights down low/tv quiet.

If she is sleeping at night(only waking for eating) I would think it's just going to be a matter of a few weeks for her to start to strecth the sleeping times out. Plenty of babies just sleep until they need to eat for six weeks or more.

She is to young for crying but don't feel bad if you have to let her cry for you to use the bathroom, shower or make a hot drink.

Also perhaps trying raising the top end of her moses basket, perhaps the milk is coming back up a bit and hurting her? And if she is guzzling the milk and burping well she just must need the milk. It's hard the first weeks but it will get easier.

[silkcushion]

just want to say - i understand what yr going though. i don't know how to fix it though. my dd became nocturnal a week ago. i'm doing exactly what you are to fix it. the evening routine is working well. she now sleeps from 7pm , i wake her for a feed at 10ish then she goes back down.

over the last 2 nights she has slept longer. until 1am first night and 2.30am last night. but once she's up she will not go back down. i'm perservering with it but struggle to keep her awake during the day.

i'm going to fix the feeding first i think. need to up the daytime feeds although she is having what is recommended. dd seemed to have a growth spurt at 3 weeks and is having another now at nearly 6 weeks

good luck

[SpeckledHen]

Hello mate. I am your friend who suggested this site. I will not disclose my name but hi there!! Hope you get some good answers.

[VL]

Thanks everyone for your advice. I will be putting it into action asap, or at least give it a go!