Newborn completely nocturnal

[pregnantmum36]

Please somebody help us, we are exhausted😥 . Our newborn is literally asleep all day, half waking up for a feed every few hours.

However, when night time comes, they are wide awake, very unsettled, cluster feeding - and this goes on til about 6am. We are so so so exhausted and could really do with some help on what to do to change this pattern?

How old is baby?

Unfortunately that sort of behaviour is very typical for small newborns. Until their circadian rhythm: develop, they have no sense of night and day. That usually happens after a few weeks.

My advice - take shifts if you can and find a good box set to get you through the night. Those first few weeks are torture, but you will get through it!

Our second was like this. I resigned myself to sitting up with them from 2am until 5am every morning in the end and watched reruns of friends etc.

What saved my sanity was my husband would give me 8pm until 12pm ish to sleep undisturbed, and then he would go to bed in a different room and I'd do all the wake ups overnight.

She slowly reset herself over a couple of months.

She's 2 weeks. We do shift work in the night, but we have another young child so we can't rest in the day. Struggling to catch up. I don't remember it being like this with the first, maybe I've just forgotten ahh!

Oh she’s still tiny! Completely normal at that age, just give it a few more weeks.

My second is now 12 weeks and I similarly forgot how brutal those first few weeks were! With two, we couldn’t do shifts as there was also a toddler to look after, so the way we got through it was to have one parent for each child. DH focused on our toddler, whilst I focussed on the newborn. He would take out our toddler every day so that I could sleep when baby slept (hated that phrase with my first but now I’m desperate for it!).

Ah she's tiny, I think lots of new borns are nocturnal, if your BF you also produce more milk hormones at night.
Makes me wonder if they're is some sort of ancient survival reason for it.

Try and get her out in fresh air during the day and try to feed her every 2-3 hours

Hang in there. My baby is now 6 weeks and was completely nocturnal to begin with, cluster feeding for hours . He alsk hated being put in his own bed, so i think that was contributng to him basically being up all night. I don't remember my first being like this either.

Its much better now, albeit we are still very much in the newborn nights phase. He's now waking almost like clockwork at 1.30ish, 4ish and 7ish. The feeds themselves are also getting quicker as he learns to feed more efficiently.

Is your LO hating being put down? If so we have had success with swaddling, and warming his sheet with a hot water bottle before transferring him (and waiting until he's defo fast asleep before transferring!)

Good luck, you aren't alone. It may feel like that in the middle of the night but there's lots of us up feeding and feeling exhausted at exactly the same time 🙂

Circadian rhythms don’t kick in until around 12 weeks usually. It’s complete torture to new parents. Best thing you can do is stick rigidly to a routine for night time. Bath, bottle bed etc. same time every day. Keep the bedroom bright for day naps, dark at night etc. Do not deprive day naps to feed night sleep. I’ve heard “sleep feeds sleep” and I’m sure it’s right. Mine always slept better at night if they consistently napped well during the day. They do catch on, but it takes a while. I’m still jealous of my friend’s baby that did nights from day 1. If you can afford it and you’re desperate, night nurses are an actual god send. Good luck (and congratulations)!

How are you getting on OP?

It is completely normal if absolutely knackering. Usually they start to learn the difference between night and day at around 6 weeks but don't give up hope, there are some things you can do.

Wake her up at least every 3 hours in the day and offer a feed, even if it means stripping her to wake her enough to feed.

Get her outside at least twice a day. Daylight has a proven positive effect on infant sleep at night.

Make daytimes noisy and bright.

And take it easy in the moments you can