AIBU to not keep my baby awake today?

[FlissyFloo]

DD is seven weeks old and I'm at a loss to know what to do about her sleep. She sleeps a lot during the day then at night she'll be awake for hours, not going to sleep until 2 or 3am. Several people have suggested keeping her awake during the day so she'll go to sleep earlier at night and DH and I tried to do this yesterday, although there were some times when she was just too sleepy to be woken. But then last night she wouldn't settle for hours and seemed really upset rather than just awake

Got her up at 9 today and tried to keep her awake but she was just falling asleep again and then became really upset. At this point DH and I decided to let her sleep because she was distressed but she then found it really hard to settle We're wondering whether this is what happened last night - that she was overtired, but we don't really have a clue and we're so tired ourselves that we're probably not thinking all that straight.

DD is just waking now from a nap of nearly two hours, so have we now created a problem for tonight? How can help her to sleep during the night without making her miserable?

Babies not going to sleep for the night till late is normal. Keeping her up in the day when she is tired will only make her overtired and less likely to sleep well.

She will pull her bedtime forward by herself. In the meantime you can encourage it by changing her into a sleepsuit at a set time (9pm perhaps), giving her a good feed, them settling with her in front of the TV. If you know she won't be in bed till much later, sleep in shifts with your DH.

I think sleeping during the day helps them sleep at night. Mine always slept for a couple of hours between 9 and 12 and 2 and 5.

I don't think from my experience that you can ever keep a kid awake. What you can do is wake it up after a certain amount of time, so maybe if they were sleeping for six straight hours during the day I would wake them up to try and shift that long stretch to night time x

Good luck I bet you are doing a brilliant job xxx

I would try not to let her sleep more than 3 hours at a time in the day, and keep day time naps in loud, bright rooms. Also, plenty of feeds in the day, chat to her while feeding etc.

Whenever you designate "night" (11pm-7am?) stay in the bedroom and keep it as dark and quiet as possible - no talking during feeds, no TV, only change a nappy if necessary and with minimum fuss.

My DS3 is 7wo too. It feels like he sleeps All The Time.

You can't control their sleep at this tiny age, except by keeping them awake which is hell for everyone. You are not setting up bad habits. As she grows she will stay awake for longer stretches in the day, and sleep more reliably at night. Another month or two and you'll see a more convenient pattern.

Exactly what Lily said - make day and night time 'feel' different for her and she will soon start to learn the difference and regulate her own clock.

You will hear people saying 'never wake a sleeping child' but yes, actually I think you can wake a child after 2.5 - 3 hours of a day-time nap. That said, I think trying to keep them awake serves no real purpose. Let her go down when she wants, but don't tip-toe around her, and as I said, wake her after 2.5 - 3 hours.

I promise this phase doesn't last forever

And you need to rest when she's napping too! [stern face]

Even if you're one of those people who can't nap/sleep during the day, just stretch out on the couch and relax yourself. DP too.

Sleep breeds sleep is what my mother used to say wrt small babies.

Lack of sleep can result in a grumpy and over-tired baby. You know when you just can't seem to switch off and get to sleep because you're so overstimulated and wired after a busy day/evening? That kind of thing. But a baby has no way of thinking through how best to switch off, or overriding the wide-awake but knackered feeling.

Regular naps in the day time always helped my dcs to sleep at night, though the oldest and youngest were shockers at sleeping through.

I did at around 12 weeks start making sure that there was a good 2 hour stretch (including bath) between last nap and bedtime. So would hope that the baby would be awake by about 4.30pm for a 7pm bedtime. But this was quite hit or miss, depending on growth spurts and cluster feeding and quite often just had to go with the flow. By third baby, just kept him downstairs in carrycot until I went to bed myself. Often he'd be sparked out after bath and would sleep until 11ish when I would feed. But sometimes he didn't settle so well and would just feed on and off while I watched TV or read.

You can't keep tiny babies awake when they want to sleep - it's pretty much impossible. And keeping them awake longer than say an hour at a time at 7w is probably counterproductive - they'll get overtired, and find it harder to settle.

But what you can do, gently, is try to introduce some very loose semblance of a daytime routine by waking her every three hours for feed/nappy change/bit of awake time if possible. Doesn't matter if she literally feeds and goes back to sleep again, and definitely don't try to keep her awake longer than an hour or so at a time, but aim to keep on that 3 hour timeframe rather than allowing her to sleep say a solid 5/6 hour stint during the day. (Obviously feed whenever she demands it - I don't mean make her wait three hours if she seems hungry earlier - but I found with mine that they didn't really 'demand' feeds during the day and so it helped to wake and offer them the breast at least every 3 hours and whenever they wanted in between!).

At 7wks, it's also worth trying to introduce a bathtime around 6/6:30, and then from 7pm keep everything quieter. Overnight (ie 10:30/11pm onwards) try to do all feeds in as near dark as possible - use a dim night light, no nappy changes unless she poos, if you speak to her do so in a whisper, make it very obvious that this is 'different' to daytime (I always used to do all the daytime feeds downstairs, and the nighttime ones in bed in our bedroom, for example). Then from about 7/8am, it's lights on, big smile, bright chatter, make it clear the 'day' has started.

It will take a bit of time but they do gradually sort themselves out and work out the day and night thing. The key is to encourage more alert and awake time during daytime hours without letting them get overtired, which is a lot easier to say than it is to achieve, I know. But as she gets a little older and able to stay awake a little longer you will hopefully get to learn her 'sleepy' cues and be able to settle her for a nap before she gets overtired.

At 7w her awake cycle will still be very short so IMO you are very much asking for trouble by forcing her to stay awake.

It's normal for her days and night to be confused at this point - this will sort itself out over time.

Honestly, go with what she's telling you she needs right now and over time it will come good. Life is hard enough with a newborn with out adding over tiredness into the mix too!!

The best thing I got told was that EVERYTHING is a phase and won't last forever.

Both mine started falling asleep for the night at a reasonable time without any bath routine or messing around in darkened rooms. I just kept them with me and watched telly. I found it far less stressful to accept that she wasn't going to sleep for a while than trying and failing for hours to get her to sleep.

That's fine for you noblegiraffe but that approach doesn't work for everyone - the OP is asking for suggestions to help her as she's clearly struggling with things as they are, and that's all people are doing - offering suggestions. Your 'messing around' comment seemed a bit snidey to me. Not all babies are happy to be kept in the lounge watching telly - my DS3 got hopelessly overtired in the evenings and was much much better with a bath and a nice calm bedtime. All babies are different.

Bit oversensitive, I think.

Bath and bedtime at 7pm gets plenty of hype, it can also be helpful to know that some babies are simply not ready for bed at 7pm from a young age and it's not because you are doing anything wrong.

Thanks for all of the replies and suggestions, it's reassuring to hear that we're not doing the wrong thing by letting her nap, trying to keep her awake was horrible. She's just settled down for another nap but was quite fractious and took a while so I'm wondering whether that's spilt over from us trying to keep her awake before. We're trying to keep 'night' as low key as possible so will definitely continue with that. Thanks for all of the suggestions and support, here's hoping we get a good nights sleep some time before her 18th birthday!

I'd carry in with that - keep nights quiet and calm to differentiate between the daytime and she'll soon get the hang of it.

My DS was and still is an awful grouch when tired so I'd challenge anyone to keep him awake and keep their sanity.
WRT sleep, I also got told to watch for those yawns - notice the first and act on the second, by the third it's too late. I'm not saying follow it to the letter but it really helped us try to avoid the result of being awake too long.

My two didn't start proper day/night differentiation until they were about 16 weeks and at 7 weeks had no routine whatsoever. We did the keeping days bright and loud/nights dark and quiet thing and that seemed to 'nudge' them in the right direction. I'd just let her be and carry on as you are, it won't be forever.

I completely echo the advice about differentiating between day and night. I don't think you can force a young baby to stay awake (or go to sleep) to order, and neither should you try BUT demarcating day and night from the outset is really helping them to fall into a routine and its safe and predictable for them- which is what babies instinctively crave: security and safety.

My dd was similar at around 6 weeks, and we worked really hard on the routine thing. Night times were kept very low key- feeds with the light off, nappy change only if absolutely necessary etc My main motivation was that I was returning to work when she was 12 weeks (this was some years ago so ML was much shorter) I knew I would struggle massively with a baby who was awake half the night when I had to get up and do a days work, and when there was no way I could nap when she did during the day. Young babies are remarkably resilient and adaptable and tbh within a few weeks we'd cracked it. She was far more settled at night, and even on days when she had quite a lot of day time sleep, she'd settle better at night. I used to try to give a really long feed at around 9 / 10 pm and then another big feed at around 5.30 am before getting up for work. Within a couple of weeks she dropped any inbetween night time feeds and would sleep right through. Making that demarcation between day and night was one of the best and most effective things we did, it kept me sane at a time when life was very full on, and definitely made dd feel very secure