Nocturnal newborn - any suggestions??

[sjcmum]

I know it is really early days, so I'm sure things will change soon enough, but our 8 day old dd2 sleeps really well during the day - she's happy to be put down wherever you want, and will stay asleep for ages - including in the moses basket. However in the night, she will fall asleep on one of us, and then within two minutes of being put down be awake again, generally wanting more food or a finger to suck or being awake. I'm exhausted, and can't rest much during the day as have to cope with demanding dd1 who is 26 months.

Any thoughts would be appreciated! Thank you.

Farm the DD1 out to relatives/DH/child minder/etc. because everything I read said that they don't start to tell night from day until around 6 weeks.

Sounds exactly like what DD did. I think it's totally normal I'm afraid.

We got to 6 weeks and she suddenly started having a longer sleep from about 10PM but before that was just as you describe.

My DD is 7 wks old - she was nocturnal until about 4 weeks old, now sleeping for anywhere from minimum 4 up to 7 hour stretches at night. Hang on in there!

Sounds just like my DS. I used to joke that he'd sleep all day and party all night! He got there in the end though, and now sleeps very well.

First of all, congratulations on the birth of your daughter! A lovely new year gift.

As for her being nocturnal: well obviously she's very young... (which you already know). You can try gently encouraging her to tell night from day, by doing some simple things that might help:

--keeping everything dark & quiet during the night, and conversely, talkative, stimulating & not-dark during the day. That should get the message across soon.
--Keep to a bedtime routine. Even though we didn't have a particular routine for our DS for ages (he's now 5 months old & is finally getting into a routine) we DID have a simple bath-boob-bed bedtime routine at 7 pm from birth & it surprisingly worked very well, even in very early days. He soon came to learn that that particular sequence of events meant night-time.
--the other thing that is kind of obvious but many would advise against (not me!) is to perhaps encourage him in sleeping less during the day, even if that means waking him sometimes. In our case, we were lucky, DS learnt night from day fairly early on, but if you were to get 5 hours of solid sleep during the day, it means she definitely has her nights & days mixed up. If you're ok to gently wake her, you could try that (although as I said many would disagree). But to be honest, it IS very early days & she'll probably get an understanding of day & night very soon.

Good luck! Let us know how it goes.

Thanks for the suggestions - all really helpful, and I found some good ideas on another thread too. The last couple of nights she has actually managed a few hours in the moses basket and been quicker to settle after night feeds. We've put a night light in our room so I don't need to turn on a brighter light, we've raised up the head of the basket as she has a bit of a cold, put more blankets on and swaddled her so she is really snug, and all of it gradually seems to be helping. Will have probably jinxed it now.... but I know that it is only a matter of weeks hopefully!!!

Thanks again...

Great to hear it's going better! The thing is, there's bound to be lots of steps forward & then other steps backward... but it sounds as if what you're doing (which all sounds sensible) is working well, so that's good to hear