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Nocturnal Newborn

turtletaylor0522turtletaylor0522 member
in Babies: 0 - 3 Months
Help, please! 

My newborn is perfect. However, he sleeps all day between feedings then at night he’s wide awake. He’s not crying or fussy, he just doesn’t sleep after eating for a while. He just lays down looking into the darkness making adorable sounds. I really REALLY want to play with him and interact during these wakeful periods, but my mom said to try not to interact so he learns that daytime is awake time and nighttime is sleep time. 

Is this something a newborn can catch onto? Like will it work or will he feel neglected? Should I follow this advice and hope it helps reverse his schedule to normal or should I let it play out and go ahead and talk to him and play whenever he is awake, no matter what time it is?

I get that he’s four days old and I may not want to spend hours every night awake with him, but right now it’s soooo tempting to just go with it when he’s awake. 

If you have any tips on how to flip his wake/sleep schedule please let me know!
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Re: Nocturnal Newborn

  • nicademus20nicademus20 member
    I feel that guilt of not playing when I hear my baby awake during the night-but I'd have to side with your mom. It took a long time, closer to a month, for me to get my 3 month old to sleep more at night and not so much during the day. I would still let him sleep of course, but while awake during the day I would interact and read him things, and talk to him, and stimulate him so he would stay a bit more active during the day. At night I had to try to refrain from this so he would get the idea that play is for the day- as your mom suggests. 
    I still am awake with him at 4am nearly every day, but that is more reasonable than the whole night. 
    It takes awhile, and is heartbreaking. I have cried from the guilt of not interacting at night but you need sleep to play through the day..and baby will eventually get it. 
    Your LO, like mine, will continue to entertain themselves when awake in the night, and it's fine, just eventually will sleep more during the night as mine has gotten almost trained to. 
    Keep enjoying those sounds and get some sleep for the day 😊😊
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  • turtletaylor0522turtletaylor0522 member
    @nicademus20 Thank you for answering in so much detail! I’ve been trying to follow that advice and we have started noticing a little more interaction during the day both yesterday and today, but we had family over both days so he got passed around a lot and stayed up about 30 minutes at a time at least twice. It was so much fun!
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  • simplyangiiiesimplyangiiie member
    Same here, baby feeds and sleep so great during the day. However at night she only sleep between 45min - 1hr - it’s not till like 3-4 am that I get a good 2-3hour stretch. Any suggestions?!?! Mama is tired 😪 lol
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  • maisiesmama109maisiesmama109 member
    It's so tricky at this stage! I feel you mama. I tried taking my baby out more for morning walks to help her differentiate daytime vs nighttime... I think it's working?
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  • queenmarie347queenmarie347 member
    My baby was the same way for the first few weeks. We only fed on demand during the night and woke her up every 3 hours during the day to feed. We also made sure to have a consistent night time routine and played with her a lot during the day. Most babies have an inverted sleep schedule when they are born, it can take up to a month sometimes to fix it. The key is consistency.
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  • acamomma18acamomma18 member
    Just here to say this is all so validating! My LO loves fussing all night and snoozing peacefully all day 😅 he’ll be 4 weeks in a few days, so hoping we get some longer stretches at night soon!
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