Day/night reversal

tab1979

Is this really something that babies will sort out on their own, or does anyone have any tips to encourage my baby along? She is very young so I don't expect her to have a routine, and the "sleep when baby sleeps" doesn't always work. I do keep the room quiet and dark at night, but she is bright eyed and bushy tailed until the sun comes up!

Emerald27

This is very normal and does sort itself out. Doing what you're doing - keeping a dark, peaceful environment at night - will help LO adjust.

Nursing a newborn at least every 2-3 hours and on demand also helps them sleep! Melatonin is the hormone responsible for regulating sleep cycles, and babies get this most readily from their mother's milk in the form of tryptophan, so frequent night nursing (during which time the levels in your milk will be higher) actually provides newborns the melatonin they need to sleep better naturally.

Good work, mama!

tab1979

Thanks to both of you! I see others who have babies only slightly older than her (7 weeks) who have fun filled days and peaceful nights and I wondered what was up. Unfortunately I'm not breast feeding. She had a traumatic entrance to the world and we were separated and there was a lot of stress...bye bye breast milk!

cyprissa

You can encourage baby to gradually move in the right direction. When she is awake during the day and alert, make things more exciting/interesting and play, sing and make faces, narrate your activities or try out the playmat. Also, make sure she gets good exposure to morning light (not direct sun or anything just a bright room). Make nighttime boring...nurse, soothe, sleep all with very low light.

Emerald27

This will sort itself out. Don't worry; it's developmentally normal for babies to reverse night and day. When she was in the womb, your daytime movement rocked her to sleep. The peaceful, still nights kept her active and awake. She now has to learn that nighttime is when we sleep. This can definitely take a few months, so don't worry if your friends' LOs have already learned this.

Don't worry that she's not getting melatonin from breastmilk (I shouldn't have assumed you were breastfeeding. I'm sorry). She will produce her own melatonin, and most babies begin regular production of melatonin between 9 and 12 weeks. Since darkness signals the production of melatonin, keeping the bedroom as dark as possible during the night, and following cyprissa's suggestions for a sleep-filled environment, should help.