Newborns in the night - is it a phase?

[CountryGirl189]

We have a beautiful two week old girl, who slept amazingly when we first brought her home, but now, every evening when we’re about to go to bed, she kicks up a fuss.

She eats and sleeps well throughout the day and we can put her down in a Moses basket/pram in the day and get on with things. She also has a few short awake periods during the day where we try little snippets of tummy time and entertaining her (only a little though so as not to overstimulate her).

But come night time, she suddenly won’t settle in her Moses basket in our bedroom - any ideas why?!

We’ve tried shushing, swaddling, white noise, changing feeding times etc - is this just part of the newborn phase and one night in the future I might get some sort of sleep? 😅

DC1 was like this from around 2 weeks and we solved it with a brighter night light.

Totally normal. Other things that you could try are getting them outside during the day, another feed or using a T-shirt that DH/DP has work as the sheet in their crib.

I have a 12 week old... I found they are more sleepy in the first couple of weeks and then start becoming more alert at 2 weeks.
I think what you have described is totally normal, newborns are known for being unsettled in the evenings. Especially due to growth spurts and cluster feeding.

This won't last forever, you will have good and bad nights. My baby has never liked being put down and we still struggle with getting her in crib. She feeds to sleep and wants to be on me all the time (which is totally natural... being put down is scary!) but it is exhausting.

Are you putting her down when she is still awake or only when she is asleep already? I have more success when she is in a deep sleep, you can try the arm drop test to see if she is.

Take care and good luck! Xx

As others have said totally normal at 2 weeks. The first 3/4 months at least you should prepare yourself for very disturbed sleep as baby gets used to life outside the womb and goes through one big huge developmental leap. Try swaddling, this may help. Otherwise a lot of skin to skin, motion and infinite patience x

Baby should still be inside you. Wants to be held and rocked to sleep not put flat in a Moses basket alone. Read up on the fourth trimester.

Our second child would not settle for their first sleep of the night (7pm) unless he was in our arms. It took months before we could lay him down awake at that time (but he was fine for his day naps!!) We would take turns eating dinner and putting the toddler to bed while the other had a baby slumped on their shoulder.

Luckily his night feeds were fine. I think he didn’t properly wake up and as long as we changed his nappy first we could finish feeding, give a gentle burp over the shoulder, 1-2 minutes of rocking and back into bed.

By about five months we could lay him down awake. Before then we just had to work the night around him.

Welcome to parenthood and expect to have fluctuating levels of sleep for the next few years 🙂