New Here! Newborn Questions..

[louiseee]

Hii I'm Louise and my DD is 5 days old today, i also have a 3 year old DS. You'd think i'd remember everything from last time but nope

Anyway it appears my DD has her night and day mixed up, she will happily go 3 hours between feeds (ff) in the day but at night i'm lucky if i get 1.5/2hours gap before she's up again.

How do i fix this? She's still very sleepy only waking for a few minutes here and there through the day but not often, we're trying to keep normal household noise and light etc and keeping it dark and quiet at night but how long does this last?

When she has a feed sometimes she will only take 1oz then fall asleep so i think that isn't helping but i cant force her to drink if she's sleeping.Help!

 

[Kitteh_Kat]

Congrats on your little one!

I think it took DD a few weeks to completely swap around (also formula fed); we just did our best to treat the house like normal during the day/she napped in a sunny room/we got out and about a lot. Gradually she started going longer stretches at night, and was sleeping through at 5 weeks.

Just keep offering the bottle when she's hungry, her tummy is still tiny. Since you're formula feeding, can your partner help with the night feeds? I'd usually do the 12 AM bottle, and hubby would take the 3 AM party session, and even just those few extra hours of sleep were a life saver!

 

[SurpriseBub]

Congratulations! I think time is the only real way for her system to work it out. My nanny friend said to make sure it is light and bright during the day and then dark at night. That helps them to get the right idea. I hope she starts sleeping better for you soon.

 

[Zephram]

That's entirely normal. It takes them a while for their body clocks to figure out when they should be awake and when they should be asleep. Make sure she gets bright light during the day - I have read the best time for helping melatonin production is around 1pm. So make sure she's getting lots of natural light in the middle of the day and she'll come right.

 

[Amalee]

There's not much you can do about it when they are so little, except try to enlist some help so you can nap a lot during the say!

Over the next few weeks, just keep up with your regular day time noises, and let plenty of light in during the day, while trying to keep night time dark and boring. Eventually she will learn that the day time is much more interesting, and she will stay up to play with you and watch what's going on.

 

[ElizabethK_]

Hey there and congratulations on the birth of your baby girl!

My DD (also bottlefed) was terrible with days an nights. I couldn't even sleep for longer than 30 minutes at a time. It took some time I'm afraid but if you have a bedtime schedule for her and stick to it, even if she doesn't actually go to sleep in the end it will work.

What I did was this.
At 8.30 every day she had her "bedtime feed". Afterwards she would have a bath, put in pyjamas and dimmed lights so we had a calming and quiet environment. I held her till she went to sleep and then at 10.30 she would have another feed.

From 8.30p.m till 8.30a.m we were quiet, low lighting and aftewards it was daytime, so normal sounds of TV, phone, voices etc.

In the beginning it didn't work and then suddenly around 10 weeks she slept for 6 hours straight! I woke up in the morning wondering if she was ok!

Since then she has her long stretch of sleep which is between 4-6 hours , wakes to feed, goes back to sleep for another 3 hours, wakes to feed and goes back to sleep for another 2 hours.

I hope it stays that way though cause I've heard of the 4 month sleep regression so I fret the moment that happens! Hahaha!

 

[SarahBear]

An ounce is about right at this point, given your baby's stomach size. You don't need to do anything to fix the sleep; it works itself out. I don't remember how long it typically takes either. Leo started doing a 4 hour stretch at the beginning of the night, right from the start. He did wake frequently after that for a while, but now at 2 months old, he wakes a lot less. He never woke and stayed awake at night though. Violet, however, had her days and nights flipped when she was a newborn. I remember being up for two separate one hour stretches in the early days with her. I don't think it typically takes too long to flip back around. Maybe a month or two? It sounds like a long time, but in the grand scheme of things, it's not that long.

 

[aknqtpie]

Mine was the same way, but it kind of just corrected itself. I didn't do anything special.

 

[Countrygirl13]

Some great advice about night/day issues above. Just thought about one of the last comments you made. You said that your LO drinks an oz then goes to sleep again. Could this be wind? Baby takes on lots of air, feels full then drops off only to wake up hungry later....