He sleeps ALL day and cries all night - any tips anyone?

[CarolinaLou]

We're only on Day 4 - 3 nights of no sleep!! Yesterday we were optimistic about getting some sleep as milk had come in and he had fed beautifully all day. He sleeps in his Moses basket around the house all day like a dream, and by our bed while we're finishing up for the day ... within five minutes of turning off the light he starts SCREAMING!! We've tried a 'lullaby machine', radio 4, opening the curtains to let light in. ... At six when the sun came up I fed him and after that he fell into a peaceful sleep.
He's completely nocturnal - does anyone have any tips?

First, congratulations on your little baby. He will sleep lots in the early days - its a case of making sure you try to rest/sleep too while he does so you have energy for night time shenanigans.

It may be he's finding it too dark/scary/cold in his cot at night. What I found with DS1 (who was a velcro baby in the early days) was that swaddling and white noise helped. With DS2, I found swaddling sometimes helped but if that didnt, winding him properly (sometimes it was trapped wind problems) and co sleeping with him helped.

How old is your baby? Its only when they get to a month or so and can stay awake for stretches that you can really start to establish day and night for them I found - following a pre-bedtime routine (bf, play, bath, bf in darkened room and into cot for sleep were my routines for them from around 6 weeks) certainly seemed to help.

Did you feed him between bed time and 6am?

Unfortunately, this is all normal newborn behaviour. 4 days ago he was tucked up inside you, never gone hungry, never wet/dirty, never too cold/hot, never had nappies and clothes rubbing on him. He's been rocked to sleep and 'held' by you for 9 months. Now it's dark and quiet at night. He doesn't even realise he's not part of you any more, they just want to be held. How do you feel about safe cosleeping? It's great when you're BFing, you can just latch him on and go to sleep!

Swaddling worked for us when DS was a bit older but he hated it at first, but it's worth a try. If you can, sleep in the day too to catch up. He'll get there in the end, they just seem to have day and night mixed up at the start. Agree with Dinky that when he starts being awake for more than a few minutes at a time, you can start to encourage a "bed time" routine. It's surprising how engrained those cues become after a while.

Congratulations and hope you get some sleep soon :)

Try swaddling definitely. Have a look on you tube to learn how to do a good one.
I also propped my babies up slightly so they were almost on their side rather than flat on their back.

Oh and I would wake the baby every 3-4 hours for feeds not that mine ever needed it as they cried alotbut let them sleep at night.

And rest rest rest in the day.

Just remembered - for our white noise we had tropical wave sounds from itunes on continuous play on our ipod on speakers - was brilliant. Even now (nearly 6 years later) DS1 often gets all drowsy listening to waves.

Hope it gets better soon for you guys- it really is a short phase that will soon pass.

Have a look at the Sleepy Baby phone app (is free) - it has a specific white noise sound - dd2 loves it to snooze off to.

And congratulations on your new baby!

Congratulations on your new baby! If he is only 4 days old, he will not have the capacity to distinguish between day and night for another 5-6 weeks or so. He probably just wants to be held and feed quite often ( which will be good for your milk supply and your sleep). Try to sync with him and sleep when he sleeps, use the bf hormones released during the feed to relax and forget about grown-up rhythms for a while...
Over the next few weeks he will learn to take cues from you and will start to sleep for longer periods at night and stay more awake during the day, but it is a gradual process. Personally I'd forget radio 4 and white noise and just hold him close to you, with his head on your left boob, so he can hear the sound he was used to in the womb. A jersey sling would probably help: our son used to fall
asleep within 2 minutes of curling Up against me in the sling.

My baby was like this, he had night and day mixed up. Try and get outside into the sun as much as possible in the day as this helps them become more wakeful in the day and sleepy at night.