Baby sleeps all day and is completely awake at night

[TiredMommy93]

My son is 2 months old tomorrow and he is sleeping all day (at least 9 hours with 2 feedings) and is wide awake all night. Do you have any tips how I can fix his sleep pattern? Or maybe you also have some tips for night time routines and how to get babies to sleep well in general.

Light and bright and not quiet in the day. Dark, quiet, not exciting at night.

Only 2 feeds all day? That's not really enough. How is weight gain going

Same as pp. Up and about during day. Changing clothes loud and bright. During night calm, dark, no noise etc.

Yeah I think some clarification on feeds is needed.

Have you tried waking them during the day? Wake every 3 hrs for a feed.

I'd try waking him for more feeds during the day, every 3-4 hours. Bright sunlight helps the body to wake up. Have some music or tv on when your feeding him. Maybe feed him in garden if you have one? Nighttime dark and calm.

At the moment he'll be taking in so much milk overnight that he's not needing to wake to feed during the day. You need to try and turn that but round first.

In the day get up, get him dressed for the day, get outside and generally make sure the house is bright and lots of background noise from the tv radio, hoover etc . At night make sure it is dark, calm and quiet.

Read Gina Ford

If I do that my baby starts to get really fussy and screams the house down until I draw the curtains and let him sleep.

He gets upset because he feels like you are waking him in the middle of the night! You need to work on switching that around, it won’t be instant. Will he not settle and sleep in the pram/sling/your arms?
Long term it is very useful to have a baby or toddler that can snooze anywhere, so get him used to sleeping around noise and light unless you are happy to be tied to the house.

Don’t draw the curtains in the daytime.

They might get fussy, as they are tired and have night and day confused. But you will have to do and Gradually they will adapt. If you wake every 2.5 hrs and feed, play, change them, then even if they go back to sleep after 45 mins they will be getting less that the 9hrs in the day. Gradually trying to reduce day sleep and increase wake gaps.

I think at 2 months most are looking at around 4-5hrs maximum napping. Over 3-5 naps.

You really need to wake baby during the day to feed. If they are only have two feeds during the day then obviously they are going to be awake at night to feed as they need to eat a certain amount in each 24 hour peoples.

You also need to expose them to sunlight in the morning so that their sleeping/waking hormones (cortisol and melatonin) can regulate at the right times. The transition might be hard for a few days especially if your baby gets over tired but they will soon start to recognise the difference between night and day.

I don't think I ever drew the curtains unless it was night time. I echo what everyone else has said, you need to make a change.

Sorry I just re-read what I wrote and I meant he goes 9 hours with only 2 feedings in between. Feeding 3 hours feeding 3 hours. So that is actually a good thing for a 2m old right?? Today I've started to establish a night time routine and it seemed to work (for now!!)
He seemed to enjoy it and fell asleep exactly when I wanted him to.
Let's see how it goes...
Bath, massage and feeding. Then crib. I even bought some night lights. They are helpful because they aren't bright enough to keep the baby awake at night but good enough so I can feed.
In the morning I'll go outside with him for 15 minutes or so.. To expose him to sunlight and then I'll take your advice and keep the room bright and a little noisy too.

Awesome tips. Thank you!! ❤️
I thought maybe he's too young for a routine.

That all sounds good @TiredMommy93 you're doing all the right things.
It may take a few days but you'll get there.
As PP said baby needs exposed to daylight to stimulate the waking hormone. When he wakes at night just keep with the low lighting, feed and cuddle him, change him as necessary but don't speak to him or provide any stimulation at night.

And yes feeding every 3 hours during the day sounds right for his age.

Good luck

Good luck!

Awesome.....
I put him to bed he started to sleep almost immediately just to wake up 1 hour later and now he won't be settled for 7 hours I've tried absolutely everything. I went through every article on Google. Nothing works. He keeps screaming. I swear to God this will be my first and only child. I can't go through this again. He's still screaming!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Wtf is wrong with him..??? So so so so so draining. My energy levels are at 1%. Just enough to breathe without dropping dead.
Just being near him makes me wanna throw him out the window. I actually had to leave the room because I started to feel aggressive.

Colic?

My DD used to scream for hours at about 2 months. We used to take it in shifts, DH & me. 4 hours each!

Infacol would be your friend.

My boyfriend is back to working night shifts. I swear this is insane on my mind. I'm close to losing it. This isn't normal. I'm nearing 8 hours of madness. Cry cry cry fuss cry cry cry. No one to help. I utterly regret ever having a kid.
My doctor said colicks but what the hell is that even. There is nothing I can do about it. I'm already using Infacol, doing massages and everything you can imagine. I'm at my wits end and there is no one to help me through it.

Take a deep breath. You can do this. It is normal I promise. Try the usual tricks of the five s's - swaddle, side-stomach position while your holding, shush, swing, and sucking dummy.

When changing Los routine they will go through crappy few days. It does get better I promise. Have a look at purple crying it might be that? If suffers from spit up or something similiar maybe try holding up for at least 30 mins after a feed.

Give lo to your other half. I used to do that for first part of night as he had better luck then me. I used to chill and sleep.

Your previous message posted just i did. Take a deep breath, make a cup of tea. Try the 5s. A dummy helps collic and reflux type things. Infacol takes a while to work. Our lo was like that.

Make sure lo is not hot of Cold. Lo is now overtired. That is not your fault it happens. I know it's easier said then done, but relax your lo will pick up on it and will have a harder time settling.

I remember this- it was really hard, our DS used to scream and scream all night. It was horrendous being sleep deprived yourself is like torture. We were given lots of advice but the best thing was remember this stage won't last long. It's so true.
It feels like that will be your life forever but it changes all the time. Keep working on routine and establishing day/ night.
Is anyone around to give you a break or let you have a nap? Any family nearby? Or could your DH book some leave even a day to give you a break?

I remember this. It is awful and you feel you can't carry on. But it does get better. If it is colic then I found keeping my DS upright in the sling was the only thing that calmed him. Obviously that might interfere with your day/night sleep training if it makes him sleep but perhaps worth a try?

My DS grew out of his colic about 5 months old.

If you have a moment when you feel you might hurt him (I had these moments - pure exhaustion and frustration) just put him in his cot and walk away for a few minutes to calm down. He will scream but he won't come to harm and you must give yourself that breather.

Also worth a mention: sleep deprivation can make people depressed. I experienced some of the desperation that comes off your OP and eventually sought help and got anti-depressants. They didn't fix the sleep but they did stop me feeling like I wished my life would end. After 8 months I tapered off them and life was much better by then.

Finally: this feels like it will last forever, but it won't. It will pass. You're doing a better job than you think. Keep going.

How long did it last for you?

With my first child (DS) the sleep problem was really bad for the first 4 months. After that it improved gradually, in a non-linear way, by which I mean sometimes I'd wake up having had an unbroken 5 hours' sleep, feel like a new woman, think I'd cracked it, and then the next week might be bad again. But slowly the better nights got closer together and the bad nights fewer.

I did everything "wrong" with DS - tried sleep training but didn't stick at it, let him get in bed with me at 3am because I was so desperate for the crying to stop, etc. I don't know if it would have been better if I'd been more regimented. At 2 months babies aren't ready for sleep training though. As others have said, all you can do at this age is try to reduce daytime naps by waking baby up after, say, 90 minutes, keep them awake by undressing them a bit if necessary, that sort of thing. Eventually they will start sleeping longer at night to make up the sleep.

When my DS was 2.5 I had a DD, and she was also not a good sleeper, but with her I managed to get her into better habits a bit sooner. Several years later I had another DD, and by the time she was 4 months old she would go to bed at 7pm, wake 3-4 times in the night for a feed, and start the day anywhere between 5-7am. Then 3 naps in the day: 1 hour in the morning around 9-10, 2 hours at lunch around 12.30-2.30, and about 30 mins around 4.30pm.

A lot of the day/night sleep conundrum is about getting enough milk into them in the day so they aren't waking to feed all night. You need to wake baby up in the day to get them to feed more in daytime.

Everything in parenting is just a phase. The early baby phase is so so hard because you have no idea what you're doing and they can't tell you. I have spent years thinking "it'll be better when he starts solids", "it'll be better when he starts school", "it'll be better when he's got through the difficult teenage bit"... DS is 20 now and at uni. Everything does get better. New things come up. You worry again. It's normal. You're normal. No one has all the answers and everyone is really just muddling through as best they can.

Have you got a friend IRL you can talk to about how you're feeling?

Sleep was poor for us for about 6 months. The reflux for us lasted till 5 months. Then we sleep trained. We still had bouts of phases where sleep was poor for few weeks or so. But generally for us sleep improved just after 13 months.

Personally I hated the baby age. Everyone seems to love it. I hated it.

There is a reason sleep deprivation is used as torture.

Just seen your updates @TiredMommy93 it really will end I promise. I used to regularly be up for hours in the night with ds at that age. Turned out he had silent reflux which was absolute misery until it just stopped at 5 months. Do you think yours might have that? It got a lot worse around this age as he started to be able to feed quickly.

@ChittyBang1987 I feel like we often comment on same threads. I always look out for these sorts of ones to reassure people it will pass as I remember how low I got. I found the baby stage really tough too, you're not alone. I found he got happier from when he could crawl at 6 months though which made everything better. Ds is 18 months now and the toddler stage is much more fun. I'd take a tantrum about opening an oaty bar the wrong way over hours of inconsolable crying any day!