When to start with your newborn to distinguish night and day so they can sleep all night. My LO is 3.5 weeks. Is it too early to do the tips so she can the difference between night and day? She seems to have night and day mixed up and I heard I have to keep her up during the day but that is almost impossible. Any ideas?
Re: Too early to teach to sleep through the night...
It's never to early to help distinguish between night and day, but too early to expect them to sleep through the night. (although some may).
The biggest thing I can think of that has helped, (DS2 has been sttn for several weeks, my older one never did!) is making sure they get enough to eat during the day. Babies sleep a lot during the day, but I make a point of feeding him every 3-4 hours. I'm not forcing him but I don't let him sleep too long, I'll get him awake and we spend time walking/talking and then he eats. Just a few days of that and he settles in a routine and knows what to expect.
Keeping them awake is a myth. It won't help them sleep at night, it will cause a hurricane of evil baby screaming at you because they are overtired. I don't recommend that.
You can start from day 1 teaching day/night. Keep the house bright and bubbly throughout the day, keep the house dim and quiet towards bedtime. When you get them in the MOTN to feed or change, don't talk to them, try and keep lights to a minimum. Get your S*** done and get them back to bed. It really does help.
Over time, they figure it out on their own, and will start to get into a pattern, but don't look for STTN any time soon. It's pretty uncommon. My LO is 18 weeks and still only STTN about 4 times a week. But she does goes longer periods of time.
I swear it gets easier!
our LO is almost 9 weeks and has slept 7+ stretches since 5 weeks. part of that is temperament/genetics/size (she's 12.5 lbs already) since she;s ALWAYS slept longer at night than during the day. Her longest stretches during the day were maybe a couple 3 hours in the beginning, but now a days we might get a 2+ stretch if we're lucky for a nap. So she's always been a fairly good night sleeper
what we've done though is,,,
-keep night feedings as non stimulating as possible. i keep the light off in the room, feed her , keep her upright to let wind up, then she's down.
-get her outside as much as possible. we always take a walk around 5-6 with her dad when he come home, and she's outside a lot with me walking her in the sling.
-i never let her go more than 3.5 hours a day without food...
This is exactly what we did from day 1, and DS started sleeping 7 to 9 hour stretches at 5 weeks old.
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the bolded for sure!