Grace wakes up from 2am-5am every night - HELP!

[MireilleHartley]

Dear All,

We are training my daughter Grace (4 weeks old now) to get into a night routine - and she sleeps fine from 7pm to 2am, but after the 2am feed she's just wide awake until 4-5am - any advice would be really welcome !!

We get her up from 6am-7am and open the curtains and keep her downstairs or out all day. But we don't stop her sleeping during the day as she is so young.

We put her to bed at 7pm by bath, feed then taking up stairs, closing the curtains reading her one story and leaving her to 'self settle'.

All this works fine and she goes to sleep like an angel, but they she wakes after her 2-3am feed and is just 100% awake! We leave her to self settle, which she tries but she's just too active - kicking her legs and waving her arms and looking around! We swaddle her, but she just gets out after 10 mins.

ANy advice? We're going to stick to the routine and just try and push through it I suppose? Have any of you had this when you try to establish the night routine?

SHould we do anything different or just stick with it and hope she cottons on?!

Thanks for any advice in advance.

From,

Mireille.

She is still too young to sleep train, in all honesty. newborns can have their days & nights mixed up for some time I am afraid to say!

It is great that she self settles for you at 7am. I would make the most of this & grab some sleep as soon as you are able, to help you cope with the awake time at 2.

When she wakes, keep it nice & dark, peaceful & calm. If she is happy to kick about in her cot/bassinet etc, then leave her be. If she is upset, comfort her. Feed her as per routine & just re settle her.

It takes time tho, but she is still so little that I wouldn't expect too much at this age.

I agree.

It can take babies a while to get their body clock sorted. Just try to keep things quiet and calm at night but don't let her get upset. She'll come around to the difference between night and day in the end. In the meantime just sleep whenever she does and try to chill about it.

Gosh I think youre expecting too much, she is 4 weeks old. She is doing very well to be sleeping 7-2 and self settling.

If she is upset then soothe and feed her. If she is happy then leave her to it. Keep night time calm and dark obviously like youre doing.

That's it really.

She's 4 weeks old. She's tiny. She doesn't even know she's not part of you yet - she certainly doesn't know the difference between night and day yet. if she is in any sort of routine, it's entirely accidental, and it will not last - it will change as she changes.

At this age she does not have any wants that aren't also needs - meet her needs at once an you will all have a happier time - I promise you.

Bumping because I do hope the OP has read the responses - it's so easy to feel that you've got it wrong when actually you're trying to do something that's just not possible.

At 4 weeks, I'd just try to follow her lead tbh.
I found with both of mine that routines were much easier to try to get into from about 3 months.
Don't get me wrong, from about 6 weeks, we started putting the babies to bed at about 7pm in the bedroom on their own so me and dp could have a bit of time on our own, but when they woke, they woke.

I used to get through it (with ds1 anyway, not so easy with ds2) by sleeping myself through the day when the baby did.It meant I was more able to cope at being awake at silly times through the night and used the time to just hold my baby whilst catching up with dvds!

I wouldn't say you are doing anything wrong, but I do think you could relax a little and you may find it easier if you prepare for the worst. Everything is easier when we stop trying to fight a battle that we are not going to win.

I read that the movements we make when pregnant send the baby (inutero) to sleep, so logic tells me that when we stop moving (like going to bed) is when the baby wakes, so it's understandable why they have days and nights mixed up.
I fvound that my boys slept most of the time until about 6/8 weeks when they were able to stay awake more and that's when i gradually started to get into a feed/sleep/play routine but nothing major until about 3 months.

Goodluck. Things will improve, just be patient and let it flow