Days/Nights Mixed Up

Lots of good advice here. I recently read Baby whisperer and Baby whisperer solves all your problems. It goes into great detail on this subject and it was great information. Wish I had read it before my 1st one and not just for my 3rd. Good Luck.
Hang in there. My 4 month old has only recently started heading towards sleeping most of the night.

Hi Tracey,
I went through this with my 4th child and here is what I did and it didn't take her long to get her back on track. So every baby has a regular eating/feeding internal clock for instance my oldest every 2 hours/4 oz (that sucked), my 2nd was every 4 hours6oz and my 3rd was every 3 hours/8oz and my 4th was every 4 hours/8ozs.

Ok here is what to do.. feed on either every 3 hours or every 4 hours which ever you prefer. Don't feed him any later or earlier, so if you are going with every 3 than he would eat at 6am, 9am, 12pm(noon), 3pm, 6pm, 9pm, 12pm(midnight) and then again at 3am. Or you could go every 4 which would be 6am, 10am, 2pm, 6pm, 10pm, 2am, 6am, this is the one my daughter has been on since she was born. I would go with 4 ounces or so and then work up from there, as he grows he will become acustomed to this schedule. In the daytime keep the shades open and lights on in his room or living room. Put him in things that he would be in when he is awake like laying under a toy, in a bouncy seat or anything else. And then as it starts getting later in the evening you start shutting off the lights, turning down the t.v, etc. In the middle of the night feedings only turn on 1 light and adjacent from where you are. Like if you feed him in his room than turn on the bathroom light or a hall light. Do the same routine no matter what, change his diaper than feed him. When you get up in the morning change his diaper and get him dressed for the day. This will also help. At 9pm everynight you would want to give him his bath and get him ready for bed (this is bath, bottle, book and then bed that you could start now). I formula fed all my babies so if you are breastfeeding than you would probably move the feeding times closer together like 2 or 3 hours or so. I hope this helps you, if you have any questions feel free to send me a message. W.

P.S. follow this routine and stay on it and you will have him back on track in a few days I promise.

Try bathing him at night. The bedtime bath products really do work, at least for my youngest. Once he is out of the bath and ready for bed, then feed and rock him. Get into a good bedtime routine so that he begins to associate certain things with time to rest.

During the day try very hard to keep him awake for more hours. Yes, he will still be napping alot but he is not too little for you to start a routine.

When my daughter was a newborn we had a similar problem. Eventually my husband and I made a rule that she couldn't slepp between 6pm-10pm. We both took turns keeping her awake and playing with her. Around 10pm I would nurse her to sleep and she would sleep for a 7-9 hour period. It takes some time to get them straightened out but just stay consistant with it.
M.

I agree with many of these suggestions--many babies are "mixed up" this way because they slept more during the day before they were born. Remember all those nights you couldn't sleep because he was turning somersaults? :-)

What worked for us was to set up the pack-n-play in the living room. Stuart took all his naps there in the daytime, and I didn't turn the phone off or do anything else to try to keep things especially quiet. It not only got him used to sleeping in more situations than just a dark room with a fan, but he started sleeping more at night when it was dark and quiet instead of during the day. Obviously, he still napped a lot during the day, because he was a newborn! However, we got his schedule changed to sleeping more at night than during the day with that method. Good luck to you!

He's still a newborn... it will come with time. He's adjusting to life on this side of the womb. He'll get it soon!

P.s. About the feeding... if you're breastfeeding make sure you feed him on cue (demand)! Breastmilk digests quicker than formula and breastfed babies should NOT be put on a schedule, at least until your milk is well established (4-6 weeks)! Now, formula's different, so it's okay to be more strict about a feeding 'schedule'.

T., These are the worst days aren't they? Both of my kids struggled with this but we managed to get them both on a good sleep pattern very quickly. I agree with all the advice you got. We also did the whole routine of feeding every 3 hours and keeping the house lit up and loud during the day. By about 5 pm we'd start shutting it down and keeping it soft and quiet. I put dimmers on their room lights so we could keep the light soft. Even now when my son is 2.5 and my daughter is 7 mos old we dim the lights at night when we're getting them ready for bed, it just sends the message that we're winding down now. The only thing that didn't work was baths. I found that baths actually stimulate my kids and sort of wake them up. So we do baths in the am. We would dim the lights, get the jammies on, feed, rock a bit and then off to bed still awake. During the night we'd turn the dimmer on and only change the diaper and feed - no talking. In the am, we open up the shades, turn on the music and play, play, play. Give him a few more weeks and he should be turned around.

PS - my cleaning lady who has all kinds of home remedies told me to turn the baby counter clockwise 3 times (literally end over end, so you'll need some help). She swore this worked for all six of her kids. With my second I was desperate enough to try it and I can say it did not work, but if you get desperate....

Good luck.

Let's face it...it's going to take a little bit of time to get him on a schedule, and I sympathize with you. I remember well the stress, exhaustion (both physical and mental) and my kids are 14 and 10! One way I got mine on schedule was to change how I fed them. While it's important to feed your baby "on demand"--this gives the baby trust in you to fulfill his needs and also brings about bonding with your child--you can limit how much you feed him at each feeding. I would save his biggest meal for his bedtime feeding. He's more likely to stay asleep when he isn't hungry. Make sure he's changed before putting him down so (hopefully) he won't woke up for that reason. Until you can get him on a schedule though, your best bet is to sleep when he sleeps--even if it is in the middle of the day. Good luck and congratulations on your new baby!

My son did that when he was a couple weeks old. I always made sure during the day, even if he was sleeping, that there were lights on and background noise wherever he was. And at night, I never turned lights on, if I could avoid it, and I never talked to much to the baby. My voice was never over a whisper. It took about three days and he was back to normal!
Good Luck,
akr

I have always found www.askdrsears.com helpful for things like sleep. Good luck.

new babies tend to be this way cause they weren't being rocked to sleep at night while in the womb. It was time to play. Right now, he should be sleeping a lot anyways.

I wouldn't let him sleep in a quiet dark area during the day. Then at night you can keep that "noise" up with a fan or white noise machine. Keep the lights off when you check on him at night or do feedings. He should be back on your schedule in a few days.