My baby is just about 3 weeks old already! So, I'm tired. I know the theory is that if the baby sleeps all day long, she'll be up more at night. But how do I keep her awake during the day?! She tends to eat and then fall asleep, and if she's awake, it's for very short periods of time, and often very noisy. At night, we can often (sometimes?) get a 3-4 hour stretch of sleep, but there's often also 30-60 minutes of her looking up with these beautiful eyes...except they're less beautiful at 3 am! I know all of this is pretty normal. So is there a way to increase the daytime awake-time?
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We were sure to keep the house bright and loud during the day and quiet and dark at night. But what you are describing is pretty typical for a 3 week old. It gets better I promise!
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I second what @MamaMoose says.
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Waiting patiently (or impatiently) is so hard! Especially when sleep deprived. Arg.
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Ahhh! I remember this! It really does get better.
We followed Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Twins pretty much right from the start. The idea there is that "sleep begets sleep," meaning the better they nap, the better they sleep at night.
As your LO's tummy and brain grow, they will figure out how to sleep longer stretches, and you will get some shuteye.
I know how hard this time is! Hang in there -
I agree with @twoofeverything: about the better they nap, the better they sleep. My LO is almost 4 weeks, and he definitely seems to sleep better at night if he gets regular (but not super long) naps during the day. He's napped horribly the last two days, and was up every 2 hours last night! Can't wait to see what tonight brings...
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We're working on the same thing! She sleeps SO much during the day, and then has a super long awake period from like 10-12 at night, and I just want to sleeeeep. I've been trying to keep her awake after we have dinner, but last night was not a success... haha. Funny enough that's totally how it was when I was pregnant. Around 10pm she would start going nuts in my belly!
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From memory I read somewhere the newborns can sleep up to 18-20 hours a day and can usually only cope with approx 45 minutes of awake time.
I think at this age you really just gave to roll with it as your LO adjusts to the big wide world and remember that they're still learning about life on the outside!
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7 comments