3 week old baby awake all day!

[GroovyRach]

Hello, just a general question really..

My 3 week old DD is generally a good baby. Eat, sleeps etc as expected. But today, for some reason she has been awake since she woke this morning at 9.30am.. It's now 5.30pm!! There has been a few times that she has nodded off while feeding from bottle but when I put her down in basket, she is wide awake again 5 mins later. Has been yawning and rubbing eyes but just never fallin into a deep sleep!

Has had a terrible cold for a few days but still slept and ate. The last few days have been awake around 8-9ish, 4oz milk, 4oz again around 12/1pm then has fallin asleep till maybe 6ish. Another few 4oz feeds then settled for the night around 11pm. Feeds through night every 3 1/2 hours.

Anyone else 3 week old baby sleep like this?!

Not sure if this is any help, but my DD was similar. Once she got out of that sleepy newborn phase, she could easily be awake most of the day apart from a few post-feed snoozes here and there.

I finally figured out that it wasn't that she wasn't tired, it was just that I wasn't helping her to fall asleep. I thought she'd just drop off when she was tired, so was just going through the day without actually encouraging her to nap.

I then read that a baby that age can't stay awake much more than 2 hours at a time, so started looking for her tired signs and encouraging her to sleep, which for my DD turned out to be every hour and a half. Once I started to encourage her to go to sleep (feeding, rocking, shushing etc), she went from sleeping about 2 hours max in the daytime to sleeping 4-5 hours, practically overnight, although the first few weeks were definitely harder as I was still learning her signs and she was still learning that sleeping in the daytime is a good thing.
She still can't stay awake for much more than an hour and a half at 3 1/2 months now.

As for waking up as soon as you put her down - my DD did this as well. I took the attitude that the first priority was to get her to sleep at all in the daytime, and then we could work how she was falling asleep and staying asleep. To begin with, she would only do 20 minutes, but is gradually getting longer, and will now easily do 40 minutes on her own, and sometimes even an hour!

I spent a couple of weeks noting down her sleeping times and the amount of sleep she got in a day, along with any major crying/fussy periods and her general mood. On the days where she got plenty of daytime sleep, she would be happy and content right up until bedtime, but the days she didn't were a recipe for the dreaded early evening fussiness and lots of screaming!

Good luck with it though - it's definitely worth persevering, even if it takes a few weeks!

Thanks for your response!

It got to 6.45 and she still hadn't drifted off, so decided to give her a nice warm bath, into sleepsuit, warm milk and try bed routine. She settled well in my arms in dark room, I stayed like that for 10 mins till I was sure she was sleeping then tried to put her in basket. Sure enough, she started fussing and then the eyes pinged open again!! Rocked her for a while but then noticed she had a lot of grumbling from her tummy and wind from her bottom. Spoke with friend who said she maybe had trapped wind that was causing her discomfort and so struggling to settle due to that. Went and got some colic drops (gripe water that I was going to get said unsuitable for under 1mnth), gave it to her and she has been settled sleeping for over an hr now! I dont believe she has colic as she hasn't been screaming in pain, but the drops seem to have done the trick!

Like you said, I was finding it hard to believe that a 3 wk old baby could stay awake for so long! She seems to have fallen into the pattern of waking up, staying awake for 4 hrs then napping for 4 hrs, awake again for 4hrs then bed for the night!

Anyway, will see what tomorrow brings. Fingers crossed she sleeps well tonight now, she certainly has a lot to catch up on! Little minx

My DS existed on far less sleep than expected almost from birth. He hardly napped in the day from a very early age and think he perfected the art of the eyes pinging open as you tried to put him down!

Did him no harm at all and he tells me sleeping little was a useful skill at uni!

I was mystified by this with DD, until I read - rather too late - that it is normal behaviour in a young baby to have a short light sleep after milk and then wake again for a top up before falling into a deeper sleep. Granted this was in respect of breastfeeding so I don't know if it's applicable, but I sure wish I'd realised it before spending so much time fretting about when and how much she should be sleeping.

To add aswell, all day while she was awake, she wasn't upset/grumpy etc. Was very content being held, laying in basket or sitting in bouncy chair. Just was hard to imagine such a young baby was able to last all day without a proper sleep! A 5 min power nap after feed seemed to just be enough!

You know, some babies are just like that and you just have to go with it. Generally they are babies who sleep quite well at night and that's the better way around. They also make for really bright, personable little people who are interested in their surroundings and really quite good company. That is until you try to make them conform to someone else's ideas of how much they should sleep at which point they turn into little demons from hell.

Just thought I'd report in this morning...

So DD fell asleep around 10ish last night, woke at 2.45 - 3oz milk, nappy changed and back to sleep straight away. 7.40 - 3oz milk, nappy and back in basket looking like she might go back over.

If she sleeps like this at night, I'm happy if she wants to be awake all day

hi! my baby is 15 weeks old and only sleeps in the day in her buggy/the car. i think i've just resigned myself to this and will have to go for long walks/drives whenever she looks tired!

My 3 week old is the same, she sleeps amazingly from the evening throughout the night, waking ever 3 hours or so for a feed lasting about an hour then back to sleep. But soon as we Gert up in the morning around 7 its a battle to get her to sleep. From 7am she'll have an hour nap and then she'll be up for about two hours taking little bits from a bottle but only taking few mouthfuls even though she's signaling she's hungry. after two hours of this constant fussyness she'll nap for 40mins to an hour, then wide awake again. Crying for her bottle but only taking bits at a time for another 2 hours or so. She occasionally falls asleep while having a little feed but only for 5-10mins and if I put her in her basket she'll wake straight up and decide she'll want a bit more milk. This bones on till about 5-6pm, then its asleep for 3 hours until the next morning. Is this normal For a 3 week old, I'm worried she is awake for too long. Also she has really bad wind, she'll stop in the middle of feed for 20 mins sometimes try to poo or fart and seems to struggle with it. While she's a asleep she also makes a little moans now and then as if she's trying to fart, sometime,es succeeding. Could she have colic? They say the symptoms are screamy cry and legs pulled up to her belly but she doesn't do either but does seem to struggle with poking and wind. Any advice would be great!!