how do you get a new born to sleep at night?

Question

MY NEW BORN SON IS 10 DAYS OLD AND HE SLEEPS FINE DURING THE DAY BUT IS CRANKY AT NIGHT. HE DOESNT CRY ALOT HE ACTS LIKE HE IS ALWAYS HUNGRY. MY WIFE DOESNT THINK ITS A BIG DEAL BUT I WORK AND I END UP SOMETIMES WITH HIM FOR SEVERAL HOURS. WHAT ARE SOME KEY SECRETS TO GET THEM TO SLEEP LONGER AND AT NIGHT?

Answer 1

for a baby 10 days old it is normal! NORMAL! normal babies don't develop normal sleeping hrs untill after the age of 1yr old, before then they never usually sleep longer than 3-4 hrs at a time. It is completly normal! It's part of being the Dad, dad, getting up to help it go back to sleep. i mean COME ON! THE BABY IS ONLY 10 DAYS OLD! put yourself in the babys shoes would you be able to sleep if you went from a warm controlled environment with someone always there for you (in the womb) to a harsh, noisy, cold environment, with no one there... how would you sleep!?!?!?

Answer 2

At this time your son believes that night is day and day is night because he just spent (9-10 months) most of his waking moments in the dark. There is no way to change this, it will be a month or so before he changes and sleeps during the night. However he will continue to wake at night for feedings. Also, him being ten days old, he will only sleep, at most, a 4-5 hour stretch because infants need to eat at least 4 oz of milk every 3-4 hours. The only suggestion I have is to wake the Mother and you sleep in a separate area. The Mom can sleep when the baby sleeps during the day.

To get him to sleep longer, not by much, but some, the infant sleeping by the Mother would help in getting him to sleep longer, he would be more comfortable by the Mother and he could relax longer.

Answer 3

I am certainly empathetic. Been there...done that. I do have three suggestion.
1. He is very young and needs a lot of sleep but he may be sleeping to much during the day so try and keep him up a bit longer between naps. I am sure your wife is appreciating him sleeping because she also needs her rest.

2. This is extremely important if you want to have a peaceful bedtime from the get go. Begin a routine. Set a bedtime appropriate for a newborn. I would say at this early stage, put him/her down when you all go to bed. One hour before bedtime give him/her a nice warm bath. After jammies are on swaddle him in a baby blanket (maybe for a week or two). Feed the little bundle of joy and place him in his crib or bassinette AWAKE. Even now he needs to learn how to begin putting himself to sleep. What occurs when you place them in the crib or basinette asleep is that when they do wake up they do not know how to put themselves back to sleep.
If you begin now by placing him down for naps and bedtimes awake you have a much better chance that he will learn to also put himself back to sleep if he happens to wake up...for some other reason than hunger.

3. I disagree with quiet bedtimes. If the baby gets used to noise now, he will sleep peacefully through noise from here on out. I always put in a soothing CD in a player I got for his room. If the babe does not get used to noise then small occurances will wake him. You could also use one of those white noise machines.

Good luck and get some sleep!

These things worked well for me after my Dr. explained why my son was waking 5 times a night.

Answer 4

Time. New borns dont know how to sleep yet. They have to learn.

Your wife is right, this is not that big of a deal right now, losing sleep is part of this stage of life.

Keep him in bright light during the day, and around activity for a few hours through the day (he's going to need the bulk of his time quiet so he CAN sleep during the day, newborns need sleep).

At night, turn off the lights and keep them off and keep things quiet and still.

He will eventually learn that night time is for sleeping, and day time is not so condusive to it.

Its going to take time, but part of having a new baby is losing sleep. If you just get over it and resolve to get through this time, you'll be amazed at how much sleep you DONT need to function properly. 5-6 hours can really be enough to survive without being a monster.

Get the sleep lady's book. Its excellent for this stage of development, and on. Its call goodnight, sleep tight.

Answer 5

Dude I have two girls. They just dont sleep like us. They have to get in a rythmn. Whenthey figure out there nights and days like us they will start to sleep longer. You can also try to keep him up an extra 15 to 20 minutes between naps. It may help in the process. Between 4 and 6 months is when they start to get in the habit of sleeping longer at night. New borns also feed every 2 to 4 hours.

Answer 6

My son made up his own shcedule at 2-1/2 weeks old. he was awake more during the day ans slept through the night. I would nurse him from both sides before bed at about 9 and he would go down till about 6 am get up nurse both sides again and then go back to sleep for another couple of hours. He is probably hungry...try it.

Answer 7

Make sure he is exposed to natural light. It will take a while for his internal clock to be set but if he is exposed to lots of natural light, it will help. So don't shut the curtains where he sleeps. His clock will figure out dark is night and light is day and hopefully sleep when he is supposed to.

Our daughter started sleeping through the night at around 6 week. I guess we were lucky.

Answer 8

Make sure it is COMPLETELY dark at night time, no lights on. This really helps getting them on track at sleeping better at night time. Maybe your son is getting most of his sleep during the day, and has his days/nights switched around. Our son at that age would get up every 2 hrs and want to eat... but after that, he'd usually go right to sleep. Try stimulating, making more noises all throughout the day... tummy time, tv up louder than at night. I know we did this, and by 9pm we would have the tv lower if we were watching it, and all lights out. My son was a big boy- 9lbs 10oz at birth, and it always seemed like he wasn't getting enough food to statisfy him at night, so by 2 1/2 months, we actually gave him a very small amount of rice cereal mixed with formula (really runny) spoon fed... he just loved it, and it did help keep him more full and sleep longer at nights. Now, many ppl disagree wiith giving them baby cereal that young-they say do it at 4-6 months. Some ppl say it's because of allergies they can develop if given to them too young- my son has no allergies at all. So I think it's up to the parent... my entire family kept saying to give it to him - that they had to their children (all turned out just fine), even my mom who is crazy about following rules and stuff told me to. Because of his size, they thought he'd do just fine. So we started out small, and by 4 months , he had more and not as runny. Your baby is still very small to think about cereal, but in a couple of months, you could try it.
I know it's very tough not getting sleep... my son was also colicky (crying and crying and we didn't know why after trying almost everythign possible).... so I had to sleep with him in my bed with me because he would scream and scream if I layed him in his crib... so he would sleep much better with me. that lasted maybe 3-4 months, then he just loved his crib.

Well, hope some of this helps a little... try the day and night thing, see if that helps. Goodluck!

Answer 9

That's the problem. Don't let him sleep ALL day long, just let him sleep for a little while. When I first had my daughter, I had the same problem. So her father would play and talk to her all day. Then when night fell, she would be tired and would sleep for a while, but she still would wake up at 3am. So that's when I would start rocking her and trying to sing her back to sleep. And it worked.

But here's the catch: In the daytime, keep the house well lit. But at night keep your lights either off or low.

I guarantee this will work. My daughter is 5 months old and still sleeps all night.

Answer 10

fortunately, my little bean was born knowing night from day and slept through the night from day one.
however, i did notice that the more i kept him up through the day the earlier he would go to bed.

however, i don't recommend that for a baby that is so young.
just hang in there and he will figure it out. this period is only for such a short time in your life, so you can forgo some sleep for your baby. hang in there.
that's all i thought about when i was pregnant...this is only a short time in my life, so i can not drink any alcohol, or i can eat that broccoli instead of another brownie!

as he gets older it will get better...i promise!