changing his body clock- any ideas?

[floss1981]

Advice wanted please! My DS is 7 wks old. He has never seemed to need as much sleep as some other babies and is gaining weight and is v active and alert. However, the only time he sleeps for more than 1.5 hours at a time is in the morning, where he sleeps for 4 hours from about 7 am- he has done this pretty consistently for past fortnight. Problem is he rarely shuts his eyes at all from 2 till 7, and is permanently hungry. Its difficult to entertain him etc without waking rest of house; we are snowed in so cant take him out in car either! Have tried feeding him and putting him back down but he just screams. I have to get up in the morning when husband goes to work so can't make use of his natural sleep and find it difficult to do everyday stuff without disturbing him. He was born at 10pm so people have said that this is just his natural. Maybe I'm asking too much but would just love this longer sleep to happen at any point between 10pm and 7am. Any ideas- thanks?!

My DS (now 5m) started off that way as well, although he was born at 7am so that kind of blows the time-of-birth theory . When DP was going to be going back to work we thought that having his main block of sleep from 7am-11am probably wasn't the best plan in the world.

We started a bath-bottle-bed routine which begins at 6 with a bath and ends with bed at around 7 (depending on how long it takes him to drink his bottle, sometimes it's 6.20 'cos he's hungry and knackered!) The last feed is in darkness and it's all very quiet and calm. Nighttime feeds are the same, calm and quiet and in the dark. We don't change him unless absolutely necessary and we do it with just some low level lighting and minimal eye contact.

We always wake him up at 7 with the lights on and noise (I'm a Radio 4 fan so it's always the Today Programme, he's very up to date on his current affairs!) He's also a very alert and active baby so daytime is bright and noisy and active. Daytime naps are in his cot (or sling/pushchair if we're out) but the curtains are open and so is his door so he can hear daytime noise from the rest of the house. If I ever get a CD player for his room we'll have his "nighty night world" CD on then as well.

I guess all of that is just a way of saying make nighttime boring and daytime interesting and he'll get the message!

Disclaimer: Having said that, getting the message doesn't mean sleeping through - DS slept through for a few weeks at around 10 weeks, but now is waking 3 times a night. I'm not sure why but I think it's more to do with being able to do more rather than hunger/not being able to settle.