My Newborn Won't Sleep at Nighttime

I've read some babies get their nights and days mixed up. When he was in the womb he slept when you were up walking around and going along with your day. At night, when you were not moving and sleeping, he was awake because he wasn't being rocked to sleep any more. From what I remember reading you want to make day time DAY TIME. Open the blinds and let in light, go about your normal noise of the day, don't hush things etc. At night, you want everything dark and quite. Try a night time routine and don't talk a lot or make a lot of eye contact. Basically, make it fun time during the day and quite (not a lot of interaction) at night. Also remember, he’s still very tiny and trying to figure stuff out.
Even though you must be so tired, enjoy this time it goes by so fast!!!
C.

Dear L.,
I have two children. The oldest will be 22 in October. The key to children sleeping well at night is keeping them awake during the day time. Your baby is only 3 weeks old, so what he's doing now is not necessarily how his patterns will be in a couple of months.
My children were both born very alert. It was difficult...I expected them to sleep most of the time and I could get things done throughout the day. NOT! They were awake all day. But the trade off was that they slept all night. You certainly don't want to over-stimulate him, but the less he sleeps during the day....the more he will sleep at night. His little body clock is just working backwards right now. He is so brand new...you can definitely get his sleep patterns turned around. Sing to him during the day, pack him around with you. Get him used to being up during the daylight hours. Hold him while you vacuum or load the dishwasher. Take him out to the mailbox with you. Naps that young are perfectly fine and he will need them, but if you let him sleep all day, he will think night time is when it's time to be awake and active. And, he will still be doing it at 2 or 3 or 4 years old if you don't get his schedule turned back around.

Take care and congratualtions on your new baby.

L.,

Congratulations on becoming a mother! Babies develop their own sleep schedules and honestly, there's really nothing you can do about it. One of my kids used to wake up at 5 am raring to go. It took years for that to stop. Making lemonade out of lemons, I always took him to see the sunrise from a window. A friend of mine who also has 4 kids once told me this: There are three things you cannot force a child to do - eat, sleep and poop.

Good luck, and remember to try to sleep more during the day when your baby is asleep.

This is normal and he will learn to sleep at night. All newborns are like that. They haven't had the same light/dark cues to govern their biorythms, so it takes a while for them to adjust. It sounds like your little guy may just need a little more time and a little more coaching than most. Do the best you can to keep him awake more during the day - do things to stimulate his senses and get him to want to stay awake - and gradually you'll have him sleeping several hours less during the day and hopefully more at night. It also helps to use the same routine for naps and nighttime, including trying to put him down in the same bed in the same room and blocking out at least some light (to trigger an association between it being darker and time for sleep).

Good luck!

N.

I second the recommendation for "On becoming Babywise", but take it with a grain of salt. What I seem to remember is getting into a routine (roughly) of eat, awake time, sleep. Keeping a newborn up after a feeding is a tall order at times, but it worked out great for us in helping our little guy establish a good rhythm, and yes - he was sleeping through the night around 2-3 months. The next book for when he's older (that I still pull out on occasion) is Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child by Weissbluth. A great reference for establishing naps and dealing with circumstances like travelling across timezones, etc.

Good luck and congratulations!!! :)

With my four kids I would wake them up during the day after 3 to 3 1/2 hours after their last feeding. At night I would let them sleep as long or short as they wanted. They got the hang of it realitively quickly that slleping long is for night. Of course anytime they got sick everything got messed up for awhile. Congradulations on your new little one. As tired as you are. this will quickly pass.

My first son did this as well. The best way to get them switched over is to feed him every 3 hours during the day - even if you have to wake him up. Then he will be able to go longer at night without feeding and may be ready to sleep for longer stretches after all the daytime interruptions. Hope this helps.

L. F.

It is very normal for babies to do this - we need to teach them about day and night as well as how and when to sleep. The book The Baby Whisperer Solves All Your Problems is similar to the Babywise book but much more thorough. I used Babywise with my first, but when he wasn't following the schedule, I wasn't really sure what to do. The Baby Whisperer book really made the schedule easy and had tons of suggestions on how to deal with sleep issues.
Good luck!
C.

I agree with just about every mom who's responded. My son went through this when he was about 3 months old, and I thought I was going to pull my hair out!!! I just slept when he slept during the day and found some interesting TV shows until he was ready to sleep (around 4am). Newborns have the same sleep pattern they did while they were in the womb: lulled to sleep by mom's movements during the day and wide awake while mom is resting at night. It takes a while (different for each baby) to get this schedule flipped around, and my son grew out of it in about a month. It's HARD to go through this, but he should outgrow it :)

Hello, L.!
Congrats on your brand new baby boy! Such an exciting (and scary) time.

You know, not to go against what anyone says because every baby is different. I'll just tell you what I found. My baby nursed constantly for weeks and only slept as long as 2-3 hours max during the day- even less at night.

As much as it makes sense to keep a baby awake more often during the day for them to be tired enough to sleep at night, this did not work for me. Our pediatrician made a good point about how a restless baby could have trouble sleeping at night if he/she did not nap properly during the day.

So, I let my baby have her daytime sleep(provided she was eating enough and gaining weight properly), and slowly but surely she is outgrowing it. She is now 10 weeks and sometimes almost sleeps a full night's rest.. I'm talking a max of six hours. Now this isn't every night, because to be honest most babies that are as young as yours and even mine don't really understand a schedule. Our doc was right.

I say try letting your baby sleep when he wants as long as nourishment isn't a problem. This is the schedule baby was in when he was in the womb. :)
Keep nights uninteresting if you can, sometimes my baby wants to "party" at 3am. I definitely don't want her to think that's what time it starts. I don't say much, don't turn on lights (only a night light), etc etc.

He will hopefully outgrow it soon, I KNOW that when you're exhausted the last thing you want to hear is "hang in there, it'll pass".
But this is mostly true.

Good Luck, and congrats again!

P. D

your baby is confused about night and day time, Keep him awake as much as possible during the day, talking and playing and taking baths, tummy time, Remember night time is not fun time, so ignore him at night, as much as possible so he learns that that is the time to sleep. I think with more time a little more effort to keep him awake during the day he will change to night sleeping and day play time; he is still so little give him some time

Hi L.,
You may want to check out the book "On Becoming Babywise" by Gary Ezzo. I used it with my youngest daughter and it really saved my sanity! He talks a lot about scheduling and how to get your baby on a schedule that works for the both of you (incuding how to get them to sleep through the night). It is a short book so you can read it really quickly while he's having one of his loooong naps! LOL

Best of luck to you and congrats on your baby!

The book "Babywise" can help you. We followed it with our twins and it worked. Good luck and I hope it can help you.

Sounds just like my little guy - who will be 2 yrs old next month. Only my boy didn't sleep during the day either - he really didn't sleep much at all until 15 months.

But, there are definitely things you can do to "flip" his schedule around. Here are some mistakes I made in the evening hours & early morning hours: keeping him in bright or even dull light, talking to him, giving him eye contact, changing his diaper too much.

I highly recommend Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child by Weissbluth & Ferber's book Solve Your Child's Sleep Problems. Excellent resources for sleep because you will be dealing with various sleep issues for awhile. It took about 4 months before my son would fall asleep before MIDNIGHT...then at 6 months he would fall asleep by 10PM (but still waking up every 2-3 hours, sometimes every hour). At 7 months I finally did CIO using Ferber's method & within 3 nights he was falling asleep at 7PM - changed our lives dramatically!! Even though he was nowhere near sleeping "through the night" yet, it gave us time to ourselves, finally.

Every child is different, so yours may figure it out sooner than mine did. Currently my son is down to 1 nap a day, lasting approximately 90 minutes. Then he gets 10 hours of sleep a night - sometimes only 8 or 9 hours. And I don't anticipate that he'll be changing dramatically for a long while yet. He's up by 5:30, 6AM every single morning.

3 weeks is much too early to try & start "sleep training" - it becomes more effective once they hit 12 weeks, so he will probably change on his own in the next few weeks. Just try & hang in there, REST when he sleeps, keep the room dark when he's awake at night, etc. - another good resource is Happiest Baby on the Block - gives some good techniques for getting a newborn to sleep. Didn't work for me but I know other's have used it with success. :)

Good luck - I can really really empathize with you. Just take it one night at a time & stay consistent when you start implementing changes!

Hi L.,
This is totally normal for some newborns. It is called day/night confusion and within a week or two it should start to change. I HIGHLY recommend reading "Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child" by Dr. Marc Weissbluth to understand biological sleep rhythms and how to identify them. Most newborns will need to go back to sleep within two hours of wakefulness during the day. Now is the time to establish nap and bedtime routines. Per Dr. Weissbluth, longer night sleep develops around 7-8 weeks with an earlier bedtime followed by the development of a 9am nap around 3-4 months old. Remember to sleep when he sleeps and don't worry about housework and such. Enjoy your baby and get lots of rest. If you are interested in Dr. Weissbluth's methods, email me. I think he is an amazing pediatrician with extensive experience in sleep and sleep disorders.
Congrats on your little man!
L.

L.,
He has his days and nights all mixed up. Here is an old tradition, not sure if I completely believe it, but it worked for my 4 kids and all of my sisters kids (10 total).
Lay baby on a bed on his back. Then take his legs and gently flip him over to his belly (top over bottom) not side to side. Then do it again, 3x's. It is what my grandmother did, and my mother did to my sistes and I. My grandmother did it to all of my kids, and it worked. Sounds weird I know, I thought the same thing, but it worked and it got their days and nights back on track. Hope this helps.
Also get him used to sleeping during the day time with noise. He will then think at night when it's quiet this is sleepy time.
Trish

All the suggestions so far are great! I agree with the one that says 3 weeks is too young to sleep train. My advice would be to make the day exciting and the night relaxing like all the other moms said; the new peice of advice I thought I'd throw out there is to nap at those times when you can't wake him up. I remember at three weeks you still think you can handle it all but you WILL wear yourself out so please take it easy and rest every chance you get cuz that will help you avoid PPD (post partum depression)! My son did the same thing and honestly there was one night while he was crying and wouldn't sleep that I felt like throwing him against the wall cuz I was so tired (I didn't of course but I felt like it). He grew out of it but that night convinced me that I needed to actually take my mother's advice; she always told me "sleep when he's sleeping!" Mothers know best! Am I right moms? Good luck L. and enjoy your little vampire!

my son was the same way. 3wks is soooo little still. he probably just has his days and nights mixed up. he will self correct it naturally. what the other mom said about keeping blinds open and noise etc during the day and quiet at night helps. this too shall pass as they say...enjoy the moments, they go too fast!

Your vampire will outgrow this. The same thing happened with our oldest and the ped assured me that he'd not be a vampire forever (we actually used the word vampire as well to describe our son!). The ped explained to us, and it makes sense, that quite often little babies are more comfortable being awake at night because it is more "womb-like", i.e. less noise, darker, etc. In a little bit, he'll flip his schedule and in a year, you'll be running around after him all day long! I'd say just enjoy the time that he is awake when it's the two of you without any interruptions and catch up on some Nick-at-Night or movies!

He will out grown this. I had the same problem. I wish I could tell when he will out grown this. They are all different. One thing our doctor told us was to have a set bedtime routine every night so they start to learn that it is bedtime. Do you have a swing? The motion might put him back to sleep. We used our bathroom fan too. The sound would put him out.

Hi - I am pregnant with my third. Both of my two older children had a little of this - days and nights confused. If my babies were sleeping during the day too much, I would park them by a bright window and not tip toe around. This way they were not getting deep sleep so they would be tired at night. At night, if they were wide awake I would keep the lights on low or not at all, minimum noise and activity. After a few days they both seemed to get the picture and started settling more at night. Also, a bedtime bath ritual has been very helpful in getting my kids ready for bed. Good luck.

Hi L.,
Have you tried having him sleep on a magnetic mattress pad?
L.

Try babies magic tea and it'll help him to soothe from gas or other tummy pain and he'll sleep well.