To keep poking my baby?!

[smileygrapefruit]

My 5 week old dd2 is COMPLETELY NOCTURNAL! I just can't keep her awake during the day, she feeds every 2-3 hours but I can't keep her awake for more than 30mins after. However, when midnight strikes she's all big eyes and 'look how cute I am'...She literally doesn't sleep til about 6am. She's not crying or anything, just very awake! Feel like I'm doing everything I can to keep her awake in the day and make the difference between day/night obvious but to no avail. Any words of wisdom?

Ah. You have an Australian baby (as my GP described my son). She's little, she's used to being rocked to sleep as you go about your day and waking through the night. She'll get it soon!

Ah she will settle down, honestly!

With my two, I found six weeks to be the magic time when they started to distinguish day from night and started to go a bit longer between feeds. It feels endless when you're going through it but really it isn't.

I'm sure you're doing the obvious things...at night feeding her in a darkened room, not chatting or playing with her, all v quiet and boring. During the day give her lots more stimulation. After a feed, sing and chat to her. Show her some of her toys, have the tv on for background noise etc etc.

But try not to stress, she will sort herself out.

LOL funny little baby. My second one tried that, every time I looked at him in the night he was wide eyed, didn't cry or anything just lay there looking about until it was time to eat. So I left him to it and slept. I felt really guilty but needed to sleep.
He changed it around eventually to awake in the day and sleep all night I forget how long it took. He was my best sleeper of all.

Australian baby, I like that! Makes sense too, as I'm self employed doing an active job which I was doing right up until 40 weeks.

Yes Scarlett, all the usual tricks...Hope it clicks soon!

Ah bless her can you not just sleep when she does or do you have other kids to see too I found the first 6/7 weeks the worst I remember with ds1 me and dh slept in shifts

No sleeping in the day I'm afraid, a little 2yo dd would probably object May have to get DH involved during the night but he literally can't stay awake...remember with dd1 he said 'let me take her, get some sleep', 5 mins later I said his name as heard snoring, he sat bolt upright and baby went flying across the bed haha.

They don't know the difference between night and day till 6 weeks I believe - so not long to go!

It's hard with winter babies. The summer ones are all out in the sunshine and get their little brains reset quickly. The winter babies are snuggled in the warm and dark and don't know night from day.

Get plenty of daylight. They need that to start being able to distinguish between day and night - which kicks in at 6 weeks or so...

DD1 was like that. Agree that it improved around the 6 weeks mark. I probably shouldn't mention that she didn't sleep through for a single night until she turned 3

DD2 was a winter baby (and where we live, winter really is winter), and was just as you describe.

She will settle down as she gets older and more used to your routine. I tried to keep her awake during the day, but as my mum said, if they want to sleep, there's not much you can do.

It shouldn't take too long for her to settle - DD2 is a great sleeper now.

Nothing useful to add, but the thread directly under yours on the mobile site is titled, Should I ask for an exchange? It made me smile.

Theres your answer, take her back and ask for one that works properly

Thanks for all the reassurances, fingers crossed she'll work it out soon enough! She's actually just gone down so I'm hopeful I may get a couple of hours in now anyway. I won't exchange her just yet

Brilliant Mary! Although 2yo dd and being self employed doesn't allow sleep in the day

Make sure you get outside at least once a day and especially in the early afternoon. That's the time of day that sets our body clocks (which is also why we feel sleepy then).

Both mine were like this.

Dd wouldn't sleep til 3am. She still struggles to fall asleep now at 12.

Ds would sleep all afternoon and evening be up from 11pm.

He now sleeps well. In the long run he has been easier as he falls asleep easily.

He used to settle down for a nap around 6pm. So that's when I set his bath time as baths seemed to wake him up, not relax him. Then (he was born in March and it was quite warm that year) I would take him for a walk around the garden. Once he was dry and in his pjs. We just pushed his sleep back by 10 minutes a night. It did eventually work.

Most people are settling their kids down as we were trying to come up with exciting ways of keeping him up

Well I was overly optimistic when I posted last night as she was up 10 mins later til 2am. I then let her sleep in bed and she went til 5 then again 6-8! Now the question is, do you stick to the routine, trying to settle her in the Moses basket or do you do whatever is needed to get some sleep?! Felt much better today after a few hours sleep and fitting back in to my pre pregnancy jeans!