DD2 is nearly 6 weeks and has started being wide awake for 2-3 hours in the middle of the night. Normally from around 2am. She's generally fairly chilled out during this time, she's needs holding or having her tummy rubbed etc but she doesn't cry as long as that's happening. But no amount of soothing, feeding, rocking, pacing etc gets her to fall asleep. If we leave her, she'll happily lie and kick about for a bit, but will then cry (I know this is normal, and I'm not expecting her to fall asleep by herself, I'm just adding in all the info).
During the day, she is never awake for anything like this long. This period is her most alert, most aware time. During the day she'll nap for ages, often just waking for a feed and then going back to sleep. I've been just going with this as newborns need a lot of sleep. But should I be waking her a little bit during the day, trying to keep her awake a little longer sometimes? Is it possible to switch her round, so this alert stretch happens in the day, not at 2am?
She feeds a lot in the evening so I tend to not get to sleep until 11pm ish, then wake at around 2am and after being up for 2-3 hours I'm then wide awake so even when she falls asleep, I can't. And then DD1 (3 years old) wakes up around 6:30 anyway. So I'm living on very little sleep. I know she'll grow out of it eventually, but can I do anything to gently move this alert period to day time??