2 month old completely nocturnal

[Krumblina]

2 month old DD won't sleep for more than about an hour at night.
Sat here in the dark with white noise. She's wide awake and has been for hours. If I put her down she screams.
Since about 9pm she's slept maybe 2 lots of 45 mins. Then awake in between.
Some nights she will sleep on our chests for a bit longer but then we can't sleep! And it's still not long sleeps.

I've tried limiting her day sleep but then she's just exhausted.

Help!

Co sleep

Doesn't help. She's laid next to me in bed now completely awake.
Even sleeping on one of us doesn't last long.
If it's not going to help much it's not worth the risks.

Could you consider taking sleeping shifts for now? You sleep 5 hours while other holds baby and then switch? I'm sorry to hear this, the days must be so rough right now. But maybe more full chunks of sleep might help.

I read when my one was little that this was because in cave man times night time was when babies were most vulnerable. So they're hard wired to be awake all night to keep you awake to protect them. Don't know if it's true but made total sense to me (and understanding helped a bit with the frustration).

Probably not a lot you can do but figure out ways between you of coping for now.

How long did it last before yours slept more at night?
We are doing shifts at the moment. Just looking for anything that might help in meantime.
Hope your little one sleeps better now they're older!

I had this with DS - he wanted to sleep all day & then would be awake until about 12 at night. So I kept on waking him up if it was daytime & stuck to routine. He was in good routine by 6 weeks & going to bed at 7-8pm and staying asleep.

It was really hard work & I realise not everyone would wake a baby up. But I had 18 month old & wasn't able to function on no sleep. He has always slept really well after the first 6 weeks.

So it sounds like they sleep more in the day, right? So they probably have day-night confusion. The good news is this should be resolved by the time they're around 3 months. That doesn't mean they will suddenly be a great sleeper overnight at 3 months obviously, but it does mean you probably only have a few more weeks of it being quite this bad! So hold on to that.

Have you heard of Huckleberry? It's an app that supports sleep. I've found it super useful with my kids. Its free to use to track sleep, and they have lots of useful articles on their website with info and tips. Or you can pay like £55ish for a year and then it uses your sleep data to predict when your baby will next need a sleep. I found this scarily accurate with my kids and well worth the money.

Daylight helps to promote the circadian rhythm, are you getting out into daylight with baby? I know it's hard at this time of year though but some walks in the pram every day could help.

I would also be thinking what changes in the home environment at night compsred to day that could possibly be affecting sleep? Temperature is the first thing I wonder about, as our house is much colder at night than in the day for example. Maybe they're getting cold? Our house is also much quieter at night - I can see you are using white noise already, maybe they would prefer lullaby music or nature sounds or something else instead?

Just some things to try!

@Krumblina honestly, she suddenly went from this to sleeping through at 6 weeks. We changed bedrooms to a spare room and the first night she was in there she suddenly went to sleep at 9pm. Not believing our luck we also dove into bed and the next time she woke us was 5am. Feed and a change and she slept until 8am. We couldn't believe it. I still don't know exactly what it was but something about the change of scenery made her sleep through (until the dreaded 4 month regression...). Not sure if it was coincidence but clearly at 6 weeks she was ready and able to sleep longer.

She was terrible from 4 months to 8 months, woke up multiple times a night. At 8 months she wouldn't sleep longer than 45 mins (which is roughly a complete sleep cycle). We did very gentle sleep training at 8 months and since then she's basically slept through, except when ill or when we've upset her routine (weddings, holidays, that sort of thing) so can't complain! Now have pregnancy insomnia from baby number 2...

Can you say more about how she is fed and routine please?

If you are able to sleep from 6pm till 1am that's a 7h chunk of sleep. DH then sleep from 1am till 8pm.
You'll both get decent sleep. I found we managed to survive for several weeks like that until the sleep gradually began to switch

We had this with our second. It's really rough so I feel for you. We did shift work until finally, around 4/5 months it started to change.

She's 1 now and sleeps 6-7. It will get better xx

Breastfed plus a couple of bottles of expressed breast milk.
We try and do a routine of pyjamas and relaxing time. Bath every few days. But it makes no odds. She thinks it's awake time and will stare at nothing for hours. Then if we try to put her down she screams

Ok, I would feed as much as you can in the day. Only let her nap in the light in the day, so in pram or bouncy chair. 6.30/7 feed, bathe, then into darkened room and put in bed clothes and feed again (maybe one of the bottles). Do this religiously for 2 weeks- and keep her in as near dark as possible after 7. Try not to allow nap after 5ish as well. As they get nearer 6 months and naps are more defined they can have those in a darkened room too. I even woke my bf babies in the day to ensure they were awake for a bit and feeding.

If she is spitting up a lot of very gassy, consider CMPA - often skin rashes as well. If none of these but arching back, hiccuping on back consider discussing silent reflux with HV or GP.

I’d do bedtime routine whatever and see if she settles but as she is so reluctant to sleep look at other things too.