Newborn awake 80% of the day

[Almech]

Hi all,

For some reason our 6 week old just will not nap during the day, and at night won't ever go longer than two hoursqt a time. As I write this, he has currently spent around 10 minutes over the last 4 hours asleep and shows no indication of going off soon.

We've read all about wake windows and are desperately trying to get him to sleep after an hour or so, but nothing seems to work. We've tried bouncing, shoulder time, feeds, white noise, sleep sacks, sleeping on us, sleeping in his bed etc. He just won't go down.

If we're lucky he might get 8 hours in total over a 24 hour period but that doesn't seem like anywhere near enough.

Can't seem to find any advice for this apart from that he should be sleeping and the usual generic advice of dark room, white noise etc.

Has anyone else had this or have any advice, we're at our wits end?

Is he settled during his extended wake time or not?

Mine was like this but had tongue tie are you having any feeding issues?

A lot of the time he's fine, just wide awake, but for about 4 to 6 hours at a time easliy. We're worried as it means he's getting a handful of hours a day of sleep.

Even when he is appare tly tired though, getting him down to nap is difficult. He's clearly tired right now but is just fussing and no matter how we hold him, walk, bounce, feed etc he won't settle.

To add, he seems to go through a feed, poo cycle a lot. Since 7:30 this morning he fed three to four times with with twice as many nappy changes. Obviously this wakes him up.

Do you have a sling op? My 2 nodded off in them

My DD was similar, she could be awake for hours at a time as a small baby when they were 'supposed' to have these tiny wake windows. I spent hours stressing about the impact on her development and trying different ways to get her to sleep. In the end I think it was pretty pointless probably, all babies are different and need different amounts of sleep. You can't force a baby to sleep. Give him plenty of opportunities to sleep, and when he is obviously showing signs of tiredness help him however you can, but I'd try not to stress about the number of hours he's getting.

We do, one for outside and another fabric one but haven't been using them inside due to the recent heat.

Any fussiness? Rashes? Colic? Any mucous in the poo?

Mine never slept and it eventually ended up being cow's milk protein allergy and egg allergy. Took til we were introducing solids to get a proper diagnosis and support

Strip him off to nappy and put in fabric sling after next feed and nappy change. Walk around the house, playing white noise on your phone. He's likely overtired now and they find it hard to fall asleep when they are (babies are weird). Once he's asleep, let him nap as long as he wants. You can get DH to untie the sling at the back and gently loosen while you hold onto baby so you can then sit down.

DD2 pretty much only sleeps in sling during day. Either that or if I lie down with her to feed and we both nod off. But she's in sling most of the day sometimes! She falls asleep within 10 mins and then I just sit down

Ditto @YukoandHiro but weirdly she's always slept at night, just not in the day 🤷‍♀️ much improved since she's been on prescription milk.

Try 40 minutes instead of an hour and maybe try cuddling to sleep? I know it’s not a popular opinion but it worked for mine and by 3 months was in the cot at night. I was more concerned with him having enough sleep.

Everything I read said they could be over stimulated so I played for around 20 minutes then just kept as calm as possible with little noise.

All 3 of mine were similar. They would usually have two 25 minute naps between 5am and 6pm, till 10 months old, when they would have one 2 hour nap. Also had the regular night waking but by 3 months, they were sleeping at night for 12 hours straight.

They weren’t distressed at all though, and on some occasions would wake at 5am and not sleep a wink till 6pm. I don’t think anything was wrong- they were happy and eating well but just didn’t sleep like newborns are supposed to sleep.

However, like a Pp, I also spent hours stressing about this with my first. By my third, I knew this was how my kids rolled. None of them have ever slept a wink during daylight hours since 18 months old, aside from once when one of them had a raging fever.

When I was pregnant with my first, my friend told me to buy all the DVD box sets because I would be sitting on the couch all day while my baby slept. Yep, didn’t happen.

Mine never slept, she just didn’t need lots of sleep. She’s an adult now and still has tons of energy

Sorry to repeat what PPs have said but my two only slept in the sling while I was out walking at that age (we too tried bouncing, etc etc, to no avail). I walked so much my legs nearly fell off! Had a lovely stretchy fabric one that cocooned them nicely and listened to lots and lots of podcasts. Try it after a feed. I remember walking down busy roads used to knock them out (hopefully more to do with the noise than the noxious fumes ....!)