Three weeks old - fully awake all night - any advice?

[Lills]

I have a three week old - my first - live in a one bedroom flat and am finding she sleeps all day practically and is fully awake for around four hours during the night - very difficult to settle her. I have tried stripping her off on the playmat to wake for feeding in the day - no interest! and cannot structure a daily routing as she is not awake long enough to feed for long in the day etc. Breast feeding but she just falls asleep! Is this normal and if so how long for!! Enjoying it really, just amazed at her impressive ability to sleep ... thought I was bad!

Hi my baby is now 9 weeks but he was exactly the same, would sleep all day and be awake most of the night. We have never had any routine with him other than to put him down for bed at 18.30 following a warm bath and a feed. This seems to have now paid off and as of last week he sleeps from 18.30 until 04.00am. Have to admit though he now only sleeps a couple of hours in the day, but hey i cant have everything!!!! Hope this helps

when i had ds1 and ds3 i had to sleep downstairs with them as they would not settle at all upstairs
dh and i had to get an airbed for living room floor and sleep on it for 3months
with ds1 i slept on the couch for 3 mths

have no idea why this was the case
hope your LO settles down soon

Thanks all for advice/ comments - nice to know you're not alone really! She slept through last night from 11pm to 3.30am so that's not bad! I was happy! but anyway I guess it's a case of the weeks passing by and her settling into a routine. We will hope!

I also have a 3 week old DD, and her body clock is also mixed up. Her routine seems to be: awake from around 8pm - 11.30pm then sleeps till 4am, then awake for atleast 2 hours feeding, then back to sleep at around 6.30am until 11am... She likes her lie ins! This is all fine at the moment as I am sleeping when she does as I have my DH at home till the end of next week. I have 2 DS's aged 4 and 5 and so I am dreading when school starts in Sept and it'll be down to me to get them ready for school and get DD fed and awake... Think that the DD's routine might have to change by then?! Not sure how to do it though!

I remember ours enjoyed a morning start up at 4.00am and couldn't be resettled but he had calmed down by about 6 weeks.

One thing that is recommended to get them to distinguish between night & day is to take them outside in the pram for at least an hour of daylight every day, of course if your DD is like our DS she will of course sleep during that.

Lils, you're not alone - we're having the very same problems with our 5 week old. I'm breastfeeding too. Let us know if you find the magic answer!

Don't worry, you're not alone, . It'll all settle down before you know it. I had my second recently and she was exactly the same. Thing is, with your second, you have enough experience to go with the flow and know it won't last. I could be up practically the entire night breastfeeding many a time. It could take a good 3 months though, which sounds like ages, but it'll be gone in a flash!

Thanks - I will try an hour of daylight RookieMum and nice feel normal. I am making myself 'do something' every day even if really knackered as I feel much worse otherwise in general. I have found that if she will take it a formula feed at 11pm knocks her out until 3am and this has worked for 3 nights running now. I am past the point of worrying where the milk is coming from and just happy she is feeding before bed... that is my only tip but apart from that I can live with 3 months of this I think, just not 6 !