10 day old: wen did night become night...?

[m33r]

Just that really: am breast feeding on demand and DS is great during the day - change, feed, sleep (very occasional alert / fun time) - but then at night he seems to need to either be on me or DH to settle. Mw says this normal til he learns night from day but how long does this head?

We have a sleepyhead ordered and on its way.

As an aside he's also started to get bad eind after feeding which is not helping and again seems worse at night.

Any advice, reassurNce welcome!

TIA from a tired but hopeful FTM

All very normal, try and go with the flow, your little man is barely out of the womb and really needs to be close to you. If you can surrender to the processes at this time, it will make life easier for you. As with everything for the first few months, it will pass.

Congratulations on your new arrival!

Everyone will tell you to relish these moments and though i do agree id also say don't feel bad if you find yourself wishing them away - its exhausting!

I breastfeed my little girl (now 10 weeks) and i think its fair to say that establishing that was one of the hardest things I've ever done. But SO worth it.

She began to understand night and day at maybe 2.5/3 weeks but you need to help him along the way. This is what i did;

• Make sure during the day the room is light and bright
• Try and take a pram walk everyday to get him some day light (at the time i read that afternoon light was most effective)
• Every evening at a set time (say 6 o'clock when it starts to get dark out) switch off the main light in your family room and make it cosy and dim with a lamp

Also its never too early to introduce a bedtime routine and that was one of the best things we did with our little girl.

Upstairs, under mobile for 5 mins, bath, into dimly lit bedroom, no talking except to comfort when the enevitable crying ensues, feed, bed.

Its now a great tool for us for bedtime.

I remember my lo being attached to me constantly at night (yawn) but i think the bfing settled down a bit at about 2 week. Then just flared up sporadically for growth spurts. You could consider Co sleeping if your exhausted. I wasnt keen but it saved my sanity a few times - just be sure to follow the safety guidelines.

Your doing a wonderful thing by bfing your new baby, Congratulations super mum! Keep at it and you'll reap the rewards.

All of the upcoming trials are just a short moment in time, remember the mantra 'this too shall pass.' and look forward to those firsts. Once he gets his social smile things really start to look up

We had a vague night routine from 2 weeks. So sometime after 6:30/7, with a 20 min gap after the last feed, I would do a massage, a quick warm bath, ie a dip really, night clothes, big feed with a story (same one every night) in a dark room. Massage onwards we would all talk softly. Continue feeding in darkness and down for the night. All subsequent feeds in the dark till 7 am. This was a massive pain at first because I had no life but by Week 5, he got day from night very clearly and more amusingly, has the same 'night routine', age 3! And has genuinely never fussed about going to bed so it is worth investing for the long run. Think of things that induce sleep: dim or no light, warm milk (DS was breastfed), a warm bath, big cuddles etc. For the arm sleeping, it disappeared by about Week 5 and I also used the tactics in the No Cry Sleep Solution to help with arm sleeping. And yes, we co slept safely too.

I'm not sure, it ebbed and flowed for the first few months.

But, there's plenty you can do to help set their circadian rhythm (and preserve your own sanity). Give your LO morning light - whether you just draw the curtains back, or go for a walk in the spring air. Vice versa, keep lights and noise low at night. Routine I think is more helpful for the parents in the earliest days, we really need shape to our days and babies don't have any of that! a gentle bed time routine will help you to mark the passage from day to night and in a few months your LO will pick up on it too. I liked to have day and night clothes too, for both of us! Familiarity will be your friend for the next few years

Sorry if this sounds dead obvious - I remember needing to hear the obvious!

For the wind, cycle his legs gently and push them up to his chest and back down. Also a warm cloth on the tummy and infacol helped. Look up some baby massage videos, that really helped DS but in the main you can't do much about the wind but wait for his insides to mature. And oh double the time you wind him for.

And for my post above: I also did all nappy changes in very dim light as well. At some point your LO will begin to do one slightly longer stretch, say 4-5 hours and then 2 hours again for the rest of the night. And then those feeds get longer. But at 10 days everything is brand new to him.

One last thing. My MIL who is mostly bonkers did offer one piece of advice. She said try to get yourself into a routine rather than just the baby. So we had 4 'routine' points to the day from 3 weeks onwards: I would get up at 7 (force myself), tea and toast, hand to DH and have a shower. I fed while DH did basic cleaning, prepped my lunch, showered, off to work. Next point was somewhere between 12-1 when I ate lunch, placed baby in bouncer. Protested at first but got used to it. Lunch=10 mins. Then feed for baby and we both co slept for a long nap. Routine no 3 was wake up from nap, big feed and take a walk. I did it everyday for many months. And routine part 4 was the night one I outlined. Amidst the total unpredictability of the first few months this gave me some sanity, and was more useful than a book based routine.

An obvious one is don't have the tv or radio on, or even a tablet.

Yes to doubling the winding time. Sit him on your knee with a straightish back, hand under his chin to lift and extend the airway, gently rub and pat his back. Lying him on his tummy might help too.

Thank you all so much. Plenty to try here and I'll get straight on it including my own routine (I like structure!).

For the baby's routine did you wake them up at a certain time? If I wait for him to waken, he just wants fed and so wouldn't settle under the mobile / cry through bath etc?

Thanks again everyone. Very much appreciated

My adage was never wake a sleeping baby, faithfully passed on from my mother

Seriously though, never wake a sleeping baby. (Unless advised to do so by a HCP, obviously!)

ps what is a sleepyhead?

I'm another fan of bedtime routine. Every night we have a bath at 8pm little massage lights dimmed bottle cuddle and put down in moses. It doesn't work over night but persist with it and it will. Ds is 4 weeks old and only waking once in the night. With regards waking him up to feed I wake him up during the day every 3-3.5 hrs but I don't wake him at night

rooty this is a sleepy head m.johnlewis.com/mt/www.johnlewis.com/sleepyhead-deluxe-bed-guard-white/p231482924?un_jtt_v_pdp=yes&un_jtt_v_from_product=un_product_3#page_loaded

I don't think I should wake a sleeping baby so how do you tart the routine? My LO won't engage in anything if he wants fed and only wakes up to be fed ... If I try to do anything other than feed its a bit of a nightmare...

All these suggestions are brilliant though and I'm feeling really positive about getting going

You should wake them especially at that age if they're going over 4 hrs their stomachs are only tiny need to feed small and frequent amounts. Sometimes if they don't feed it can make them more sleepy.

I kept a log of DS's patterns in the early days and I noticed he did longer sleeps in the day than at night. I never woke him because who wakes a sleeping baby but in hindsight that may have been a mistake. I think what I should have done in the day time is feed every 2 hours or so, even if it means waking him. And then don't wake to feed at night. That coupled with a semblance of a bedtime routine, might mean that over time (not this week or next, everything will take time and there will be the inevitable growth spurts), you get one longer stretch at night which is the holy grail of the first 6 weeks.