Newborn sleep - please remind me how it works

[pinkypig]

Hi,
Sorry, probably a well-worn type of query but am in need of some advice/reassurance.

DS2 is 6 weeks old and barely sleeps in the day. A typical day sees him awake from 9am to 4pm

These are the methods I have tried to help get him to sleep in the day. They worked on DS2 from about 10 weeks but I seem to have blocked out forgotten the early weeks.

• wrap/swaddle
• removed any stimulation (dark room/quiet)
• tried white noise
• dummy

Basically if he wants to nap, he naps and if he doesn't then nothing I can do seems to help him.

He sleeps much better at night feeding around 10.30pm / 2.30am / 6am ish and settling back to sleep pretty well on his own.

I was hoping some of you might refresh my memory and offer forth some positive stories about how he is going to magically start to sleep better in the day soon

Thanks ladies

I'm a big fan of go with the flow with newborns. They'll sleep as and when they want and so long as he's sleeping well at night I wouldn't worry too much. Is he happy when you try and settle him in the day? If so I'd stick with doing that so at least he's getting a rest and you're getting a break. If he's not fussed choose times that suit you. with a bit of luck as he gets older and more active and more in need of regular daytime naps he'll fall into the pattern you've set.

DS didn't nap at all between 7 and 10 weeks old. He'd have the odd 20mins here and then but they were hard won. Then at 10 weeks he started napping again. He started sleeping through the night from 7 weeks and has always been a better night sleeper than napper.
I did lots of posting on forums at the time and it seemed to be a fairly common thing for babies of that age to not want to nap.
Will he sleep in the pushchair? I went for lots of long walks at that age as it seemed to be the only thing to work!

I've also got a 6week old DD2 - just wanted to add that what works some days doesn't work others. But I've learnt the hard way that if you don't try and put them down to sleep early enough (with my one that tends to be an hour after she wakes - think the max at this age is around 2hrs of awake time on average) then it's very very hard to get them off.

I've found if I miss that sleep window then sticking her in the baby bjorn and walking around works - I've also got a 19 month old DD so it's not always possible to give DD2 the time she needs to get her off to sleep.

Although I have to say that if he isn't grumpy in the day then his night sleep seems fine so don't worry too much.

My dd slept really well in a baby sling. I would put her in it to do the housework! You are lucky that you ds is sleeping that well at night already x