Adjusting sleep patterns??

[misspollysdolly]

DD is 8 weeks old. She rarely achieves a really zonked-out deep sleep during the daytime (so has tiny cat naps but no extended naps - Grr!!) and is awake late into the evening, feeding (mostly) but not really sleeping. Her natural nighttime seems to be roughly midnight - 10am and between these times she sleeps fairly well for sizeable chinks between feeds. Will she naturally adjust to sleeping earlier in the evening? Or do I need to start forcing encouraging her to sleep earlier?? If so how. My gut says she's too young to force any issues/routines sleep-wise and that she'll shift naturally, but I'm also pretty frustrated at having no evening time and a very sleepy baby in the mornings. She is DC4 so evenings are the only time to get stuff done and mornings are school run times. Do I just go with her flow for a bit longer or do I attempt to make some changes?? My other DCs have all got in to good routines naturally but I can't for the life of me recall when the early days change into a more normal feeling time!! MPD

Bump

Oh dear - I am the master of killing threads dead this week - Apols all round...

Don't know if you've sorted it by now but my ds was the same - he is 10 weeks old and thought night was from midnight to midday. We tried dimming the lights from 8/9pmbut he still didn't sleep properly until 12. Just tonight I took him into his room at 8:30, played his projector night light with lullaby (lasts for 5 minutes), while he fed, he dropped off in my arms, woke up about 15 mins later, turned on projector again, back to sleep and put him down about 15 minutes later and he's still there now. Whole thing took about an hour. The music seemed to be the key for him and it needed to be long because he didn't drop off until near the end. But this is dc1 so not much experience to go on.

You could try the nuclear option mentioned in Pantley's No Cry Sleep Solution...watch baby closely around desired bedtime, say 8pm. When they start eye rubbing, yawning etc go straight to bed, dim lights, no noise, rock to sleep or whatever you do and put them down. If baby wakes keep it all dark and quiet, feed, rock, dummy (whatever) back to sleep.

I have done this with DD2, much older though 17 weeks, and after a couple of days she adjusted. She has not woken up to play or anything, actually sleeps for longer in total. Pantley says stick it out for 7 days to be sure.

8 weeks is too young to expect any routine to be established, under 4 months old you need to be flexible. Babies don't sleep like adults and we shouldn't force them.