My newborn is nocturnal , help !

[Nocturne123]

My ds is a week old and since we brought him home he's been completely nocturnal . I also have a teething dd who is 16 months and wakes most nights . I don't feel too bad but I think dh may go mad with sleep deprivation soon .

I can remember dd being up every two hours when she was born but ds just seems to stay awake for at least an hour after every feed .

Is it just something they work out by themselves or is there a knack to switching his day/night concept ?

Any advice welcome :)

It will honestly work itself out. My DS was exactly the same - up for hours at a time. But soon got used to the fact that day was day and night was night. Just do the usual continuing to make noise in the day, even if they're sleeping and no noise, darkness and no communication/eye contact at night. Will soon sort itself out (as you say, he'll probably still wake up but as long as they go back to sleep quickly isn't fairly manageable isn't it!). Congrats and good luck!

I feared this would be the case He has to get used to noise during the day due to 'spirited' dd .

Thanks for the advice , it's ridiculous how much I've forgotten since dd was born !

Make sure he gets lots of sunlight as soon as you consider it daytime, the light is supposed to help regulate the body clock.

Hey. I'm sure he'll work it out on his own eventually but if you want to try and help him the try at working on making sure he has lots of feeds during the day so that he is able to do his one longer stretch at night (long at this point only being 4 hours max!). I woke my ds in the day if he was still sleeping 3 hours after his last feed but I know this is not for everyone.

Thanks for the replies ! I'm not against waking him during the day , i might give that a go and see if it helps :)

I was advised waking during the day can make it worse. It is totally normal and usually takes about 5/6 weeks, I had the same problem. To help things along make sure curtains are open first thing and play in the mornings.

I read somewhere that babies don't produce melatonin when they're little which I think has something to do with being able to tell the difference between night and day. You can help by keeping lights low and not talking or playing at night and obviously making daytime brighter and playful so they can begin to get the difference.