HELP - nocturnal baby. What to do?

[RoaryBear]

I have a 9 day old DS. He is the perfect baby during the day; he feeds for half an hour and then sleeps for 2 hours, no crying, not difficult to settle etc. Come 9pm he starts feeding like a maniac, probably only leaving 30 minutes between each feed. By 11pm both my breasts are completely empty. He may have an hours sleep at this point and then he wakes up wanting to feed continuously, will not be placed in his moses basket, has a high pitched cry and nothing can settle him. This usually goes on until around 6pm when he finally conks out for 3 hours and I have had no sleep and need to get up shortly to tend to my DD. This has been the case since the first night in hopsital. I don't think its colic as he is so young and he doesn't pull his legs into his body. He seems quite angry. I am considerign taking him for a session with a cranial osteopath. Any advice/suggestions would be well received.

Sorry to hear you're having these problems. I was just wondering if he is trying to increase his milk supply? I know it would probably be unusual as he has done it since day 1 but at the end of the day with milk supply being at it's lowest and you do say he empty's you I'm wondering if he's trying to get more? Also, as from about 4am milk supply starts to increase again is it possible that he then starts getting enough to settle him?

BTW I would definitely try the CO - we did for our DD (12 wks) and have a completely diff baby now! Good luck xxx

Mmm it could be colic, he's feeding a lot in a short space of time which although comforting at the time, afterwards can give them a nasty tummy ache. Have you tried feeding more in the day? Wake him for a feed?

My ds was a nocturnal baby and I followed Gina Ford for 1 week and he was sorted. Was an awful week, keeping him awake was tough but I was exhausted and needed to sleep..it worked for him though. With my dd she was such a sleepy baby she would sleep all day and all night, I was very lucky, but she had god AWFUL colic and cried for 2 hours at a time, then would be exhausted and sleep. Try the CO, I tried it for dds colic. It didn't work for her, but I know others that it did help. Good luck.

Sounds like he's cluster feeding in the evenings which is quite normal.

Not wanting to go in his moses basket is pretty normal too - he might just be trying to ensure he stays safe and close to you at night. Might be easier to have him in bed with you at night rather than attempting to settle him elsewhere?

It can really help to make sure that he is exposed to as much natural light as possible (something about sunlight and hormones helps to regulate the body clock), so if you are out and about with him in the pram try to keep the skin on his face uncovered and not too shaded (I know no great in the winter) and indoors park his moses basket in the window.

It might also really help to wake him more regularly for feeds during the day, and maybe try and keep him awake a bit more rather than lots of 2 hr sleeps in the day? This can take a few days to pay off and it's very hard to make yourself do it when you've had a tough night and want a break but I think it does help. All my three cluster fed like maniacs early evening for the first 5 weeks or so. It can help your sanity to try and move that evening cluster feed forward - so start ramping up the feeding from 8pm or even from 7pm?? However the day had gone I used to feed around 5.30pm (sitting at the table while older one(s) ate their tea), then bath (I know they don't really need a bath this young, but I found it relaxing if nothing else!), massage with baby moisturiser and get them re-dressed and by 7pm after the excitement and exhaustion of the bath they were raring to go on feeding again (but might have to wait while I got the older ones into bed) and then they'd be down stairs with me feeding and crying on and off until 9.30 / 10pm ish when I could usually get them off to sleep for a good few hours as they had been awake and feeding a fair bit in the previous hours.

Good luck.

Thanks for all of your suggestions. I have seen the cranial osteopath today so hope to see some positive results from that. I've also been trying to keep him awake much more during the day but it can be close to impossible to wake a sleeping baby sometimes. Aside from taking off his nappy he will sleep through anything in daylight hours!
I will definitely try the bath routine and haven't heard before about the daylight theory but it certainly sounds interesting!

I am very wary of the Gina Ford routine as I read her book when pregnant with DD and was haunted by the feeling I was doing everything wrong for the first few weeks after her birth because she didn't comply with Gina's routine. I think her methods are suited for people who are very organised, which I am not!

For now I will have to continue sleeping with him in my bed during the night which I hate doing as I don't relax and am worry about increased cot death statistics. Also, my milk supply definitely seems to have increased today so fingers crossed this will impact his night time routine!

Oh what I would give to be able to sleep through the night for more than an hour!

My daughter was like this at 9 days old. I thought I would go mad. By about 4 weeks she seemed to have sorted it out herself.

We did do some co-sleeping during the first few weeks. Not needed to since. I hated it passionately - I was constantly terrified I might roll on her or something. We also did a bit of pick-up put-down (the baby whisperer technique). Just picked her up when she was crying until she calmed and then put her back down with as little interaction with her as we could manage. I don't know if this helped or not, but she sleeps great now at 9 weeks so either we did something right or we got REALLY lucky. At 9 days I just assumed she was still a bit traumatised by being in this nasty cold world where she could get hungry and uncomfortable and wanted to lay on mummy or daddy where it was warm and there was a nice comforting heartbeat to listen to.

I pump and feed my baby so I have looked into issues of supply a lot. As another post said it sounds like cluster feeding which is an attempt to increase supply. Night is when the hormones that cause you to produce milk are most effective. I read that your breasts never really empty - they are constantly producing milk. So when you feel like they are empty she is still getting a small amount of milk out of them. When you pump you are meant to keep doing it after the flow of milk has stopped in order to signal to your breasts that they need to produce more. Cluster feeding does the same thing. Not a solution, but hopefully that makes sense? My daughter still cluster feeds somewhat at night but we encourage this now because hopefully she ends up nice and full and sleeps longer at night. We're gradually turning cluster feeding into the dream feed.

I don't know if any of that helps beyond a reassurance that it will hopefully get better in a couple of weeks.