How can i get my newborn to sleep at night?
He sleeps most of the day and becomes very fussy in the evening
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rock , rock , rock him. expect to lose alot of sleep. this will dissappear suddenly around 4 months
A nice feed before hand and plenty of singin’ and rockin’...
Are you nursing? Try to get him to nurse frequently during the day, if he’s been napping for awhile, look for eye lid fluttering and little sucking moves that let you know he’s in light sleep and would probably be interested in feeding if you gently woke him up. Newborns seem to need 8 to 12 feedings per 24 hours and the more of those you can get in during daylight hours the more likely he’ll sleep longer at night.
For the night time feedings, try to keep them strictly business, eat and go back to sleep, as opposed to playing or lots of talking. Some babies figure it out pretty quickly, others take awhile. Most babies won’t sleep through the night until they double their birthweight.
What @MagsRags said.
Try to do your talking to him and playing during the day. Calm things down in the evening, dim lights, no loud talking or TV. Soothing, nursing, rocking, swaddling. When he wakes up during the night, keep the lights dimmed or just use a small lamp for enough light to feed and change him.
Good luck!
His stomach can only hold so much milk, so he wakes up because he’s hungry. They do get their days and nights mixed up, but it eventually gets back to right. Sleep when he sleeps so you get enough rest.
Babies fall asleep quickly to gentle movement. When i was married I used to wrap my step-daughter in a blanket tightly and rock her. She fell asleep quickly most of the time. Also soothing sounds helped ( like a wave machine ) or some other acoustics.
If he’s really new, swaddling is an important getting babies to feel secure and stop crying.
One note about swaddling—our newborn started to resist it after he was a few days old, so we quit doing it: big mistake! It turns out (as we discovered later) that we’re better off letting him fuss for a few minutes about being restrained. Then he settles down and sleeps much better.
Other than that, I agree with a lot of the other comments here… rocking, feeding regularly, turning down the lights, etc.
How newborn is this baby? It’s pretty normal for babies to have their days and nights mixed up for a while. It’s also normal for babies to have a fussy period toward the end of the day. It’s sort of like the baby’s way of blowing off steam, and you might notice it’s worse after a more stimulating day than a calm one.
If your baby is under two months old, I’d suggest you stick to an “on demand” schedule. Feeding and sleeping should be done when the baby needs it. When he or she is older, you can start to try to regulate naps or keep the baby awake for longer periods during the day.
One thing that will help is to keep the night and day as separate as you can. Dress the baby in clothes in the morning. Don’t keep the rooms too dark when he’s sleeping. At night, change him into pjs and establish a clear routine. Bath, rocking, singing, stories, or soft music. Keep his room dark, with maybe just a soft nightlight. When he wakes up to be fed, don’t turn on all the lights and the TV. Try to keep him from fully waking up with a lot of activity. He will learn to differentiate between night and day and settle into a more predictable routine. For now, sleep when he sleeps like others have suggested.
It’s not for everyone, but we let all our kids sleep with us when they were babies. Look into safe ways to cosleep and see if it will work for you. We loved it because it was the best way for all us of to get the most sleep right from the start.
Huge second thumbs up to @SuperMouse recc of Healthy Sleep Habits Happy Child. We followed it religiously—our daughter is 8 years old now and still goes to bed at 7:00 PM
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