Should I be waking my 7 week old up? Am I boring her.

[Sallysshoes]

Hi.
My baby is nearly 8 weeks and spends a lot of time asleep during the day. She's usually only alert for maybe 30-60 minutes at a time before she then goes back to sleep. She will only sleep on me, if I try to put her down, she wakes pretty instantly and starts crying but then I pick her up again and she sleeps again. Sometimes for 3-4 hours at a time. She sleeps well overnight and thankfully will go down then, just during the day she won't for some reason, but I just wonder if I should be encouraging her to stay awake for longer during the day. I try to play and sing and talk with her when she is alert but maybe I'm not doing enough and she's just bored of me so sleeps?

Most tiny babies are asleep more than they're awake. How much is she awake in a 24 hour period?

I don't think you're boring her! They're absolutely fascinated by faces/high contrast stripes/their own hands and feet! They don't need much entertaining at this age

Enjoy the tiny cuddles!

“Newborn babies generally sleep a lot (according to Dr. Weissbluth newborns average between 11 – 18 hours of sleep per 24-hour period). However baby sleep is generally broken up into 7-8 “naps” varying in length from 15 minutes to 4-6 hours.

You aren’t boring, babies just need sleep. Some info here.

“Most newborn babies (under 8 weeks) can’t stay awake very long (I sometimes refer to this as a baby’s “window of wakefulness.”) Although it varies by baby, most newborns can stay awake no longer than 45 minutes to 1 hour and 15 minutes. Some may not be able to stay awake more than 30 minutes at a time. This is generally the maximum amount of time you want your baby to be awake at any point throughout the day.”

You're not boring, the world is just so interesting its exhausting! As others have said newborns sleep a lot. Try and catch up on your own sleep while you can!

That's just the sort of length of time babies can stay awake for! Or, more precisely, it's how long they can stay awake before they get overtired and become inconsolable little screaming balls of misery. I wouldn't mess with what you have going on, it sounds fine!

Another vote for let her sleep for as long as she likes, whenever she likes. Your baby is behaving normally.

My baby is 7 weeks (born 23rd March) and is exactly the same :)

Enjoy the sleepy cuddles!

Very normal - it will change soon enough. Mine couldn’t stay awake for more than 1.5 hrs until about 6 months and then she started being able to stretch her wakey window.

My 8 week old can only really stay awake for about an hour before getting tired. He wakes, feeds, has awake time and goes to sleep again.

During awake time he'll go under a play gym for a bit, or we do tummy time, or i'll walk around outside with him for a bit as he likes to look at trees, but really its not very long - 30 mins max a time.

I bought some muslins from Etta Loves that have black and white shapes on them that he likes to stare at.