My baby is 18 days old and I am wondering how to get her to sleep at night?

Question

My baby sleeps most of the day and she sleeps great. Only waking up every few hours to eat. I try to keep her awake in the daytime more but it is impossible to keep her awake. When she is ready to sleep, she is out. No matter if she is in the upright position or if she is laying down or what ever.

At night around 12:30 she wakes up and that seems to be one of her most active times. I feed her but she is usually wide awake and will not go back to sleep until 3:00-4:00 am. Even then she is back up at 6:00am. It is terrible for my husband and I because we are so tired.

My baby goes back to sleep at around 8:00-9:00am and that is when she begins her daily sleeping.

She just can not seem to get her days and nights fixed....I try sleeping in the day while she is napping but in all reality that is not always possible. I have 3 other children to take care of as well. I never had this type of problem with the other children. They woke up in the middle of the night but not like this. HELP!

Answer 1

PLEASE DON'T FOLLOW THE ADVICE ABOUT introducing cereal this early.

Keep in mind that 18 days is very, very new. She may not have the body weight yet to stay asleep for too long. But as she gets older keep trying to keep her more wakeful during the day. It may take a while, but hang in there...you've done it with the others ! You'll make it.

Begin making the baby's bedtime routine just as if she were a toddler. Choose a bedtime (my kids always went down at 8 p.m.) All household sound should be at a minimum. All lights should be very low or off. If baby does wake up for a feeding or a diaper, do all of this without turning on any lights, and keep your communication to a minimum. I would only smile softly at my babies at night. They learned that night was different.

I also have four kids. I wore my last baby. I bought an "Over the Shoulder Love Sling" and just kept her on me all the time. That left my hands free to tend to everyone else.
There's also a great, old book called Solving Your Child's Sleep Problems. Possible your local library could order it for you. Good luck.

p.s. I never used a swing, but that's just me. Let them learn to fall asleep without too many props !

Answer 2

I have a friend that is going through this too with a 7 week old. It must be exhausting. I am sure you are trying everything.

What worked with my son was to set up a routine to clearly establish day and night. He slept well during the day and night, so I can't complain about that. But we starting giving him a bath, then quite time and feeding in the dark, then straight to bed. But if he had had night and day confusion I'm not sure what I would have done.

The only thing I can think of (besides what you're already doing) is that babies get night and day confusion from being in the womb. I bet your baby was very active at night when you were pregnant. She was rocked to sleep during the day when you were active, then was wide awake when you were still. She is obviously still in this pattern. Maybe if you try to keep her more still during the day and try to keep her moving more at night. Do you have a swing or a bouncer that you could put her in to get her to sleep? Then maybe this could at least help her readjust her schedule.

I hope this helps! Good luck!

Answer 3

my suggestions if you all ready aren;'t doing this, is make sure all the lights are off, you may fumble your way through the dark but it won't wake your baby as much, eventually she will understand that when it is dark it's sleep time and when it's light its play time, also try waking her up during the day to keep her awake, let her nap but wake her from her naps, she probably will be cranky at first but go slow, wake her from one nap then two etc. also have you tried getting a bedtime routine? i am sure that with 3 kids you probably do, unfortunately some babies take a while to realize this.
where i live it's light until 10 and the sun comes up at 5 in the summer and when they finally figure the day and night thing out, i don't get sleep in the summer.
i hope this helped.

Answer 4

well she's too young for the cereal stuff lol but if you are breastfeeding it wouldnt be too terrible to supplement with a little formula at night to try and hold her over a little longer. if you're bottle feeding feed her slowly like over an hour time span with frequent burp breaks and see if you can maybe sneak an extra ounce or so in to try and hold her over. when she wants to sleep during the day try your hardest to keep her awake without her getting too fussy and she'll eventually get her days and nights straightened out! children love routines as i'm sure you know with 3 others so try to start one with her as far as what will happen before bed. try to not let her take her latest evening nap and instead fill that time with a bath, some dancing and singing and talking with her to wear her out then feed her and get her to sleep. hopefully it will work out for you soon! good luck :)

Answer 5

If you can, Id have somewhere for her to sleep in your room at night, or even your bed , I liked the little bin things they make, about $35, i didnt feel safe, just right in the bed.

Also try swaddling at night, a sound machine. But as the above one said, thats pretty typical for a newborn. Just comes with age. The only other advice I would have is to hope you could get some family and freinds to help out, so you could sneak in some naps.

Answer 6

My son is the same age and we have the same problem, its bad huh? He is so tired in the day nothing we can do will wake him up. I mean NOTHING! But lucky you your daughter sleeps at 6 that is my dream. My son wants to stay up until like 11 am or after sometimes after being up crying back and forth from like 1 am or so on to 5am. I just try to wake him every few hours feed him like 3-4 ounces to fill him up, burp him and change him. Then that usually knocks him out bc thats all he will wake up for.

Answer 7

Same problem, only mine would feed every 1 1/2 and stay on the breast from about 1pm till about 9pm at night and wouldn't suck a dummy. After about 2 1/2 months did exactly what Zoe did. That said though give it a few more weeks he may still be trying to establish your milk supply.

Answer 8

Most babies dont learn day from night til around 6 weeks old. At least this has been the case with my babies and other babies around me.
I just kept trying to keep them awake longer during the day the older they got, whether this was with no-nappy time, baths, playtime - whatever worked to keep them awake for a little longer every day til they worked it out...
Hope it works out soon for you - sleep deprivation is a terrible thing.

Answer 9

She has her days and nights mixed up. And yes welcome to parenthood. She will eventually start to sleep more at night once she gets turned around (night from day) My son was and still is very active from 9 pm to 12pm. He is 6 month old.

Answer 10

put a little bit of baby cereal ( oatmeal rice is hard on their little bellies) in her Bottle you give her at her "bedtime", I put One 2 tablespoons in mine, You'll have to make the nipple hole bigger which can be done with a needle or a sharp knife just make it big enough that the formula/cereal mixture comes out with out her having to Struggle at it but make sure you remember which nipple you put the bigger hole into, or you'll go to feed her reg. formula and she'll wear more of it then she's eating

I started feeding mine this when they were 2 weeks old, it filled them up more then formula and it helped them sleep

alot of people are against it and will say its "being lazy" but its really not, if the baby isn't getting full on just formula alone, then they need something more, so they can get their good nights sleep , That is most likely why she sleeps allot during the day from being up so long in the middle of the night

hope it helps , Congrats on the baby - i wish mine were still babies :-)