3+ weeks of a nocturnal baby
She wants to be awake at night and when I keep her up during the day she just gets over tired. The first day I tracked her sleep she only slept nine hours which made me feel like a horrible mom. So I have been doing everything I can to get her to that 16 hour mark but she usually gets 15 hours. She is 2 months old. At first I think it was my doctor telling me to wake her up to eat. Cause she started to just not go back down after I woke her. Now I let her awake on her own. Then it was gas crying from 12-6am on and off only sleeping contact. Now I am giving her gas medicine but she will still just be wide awake only sleeping 30 min to an hour at a time.
For example tn: kept her up for a bit in the evening. She was taking short naps. She got overtied at 11pm. Got her down, let her sleep in my lap til 1am, then I changed her diaper, got her dressed for sleep, and fed her. Then baby wore her to get her down, she slept. Wore her too long cause I got distracted cleaning and she woke up wanting to eat, fed her. Then changed her, and then it took an hour of singing, rocking and binky to get her asleep. I haven't even tried to transfer her yet hopefully she stays asleep. Then during the day she will sleep up to six hours at a time. Although she is getting pretty consistent at waking up at the three hour mark. Yet she will go right back down and if I keep her up she is just fussy. Plus honestly I want to go back to sleep too so I don't really fight this.
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I have read you shouldn't let them nap longer than 3 hours during the day. I have on rare occasion let mine go a little longer than that (if she got way too little sleep the night before - we had some colic issues before I stopped eating dairy), but I would definitely get in the habit of waking her from those long daytime naps most of the time.
My LG refuses naps unless held, worn, or in the car seat. I also typically use a different soothing method to get her to sleep at night - not sure if that helps but might be worth a try. For nighttime sleep I bounce on the ball or walk and away/rock her with the white noise machine on. Daytime sleep is just rocking or bouncing on feet (if wearing her).
Not sure if you have tried a bedtime routine (I know 2 mos is maybe too young to respond to patterns but they say starting early with a routine helps). I started simple - turn on white noise, change to PJs, check/change diaper, feed bottle, rock/sway/sing/hum for 20 mins after (for reflux lol).
Another thing people said is to take your baby outside to see the daylight as soon as they are up for the day. This is supposed to help their circadian rhythm normalize.
Side note since your baby is younger, if 6 hours during the day is helping her get the sleep she needs, I might just let that happen a little longer, since babies don't typically start producing their own melatonin (to regular their circadian rhythm) until about 3 months. I'm sorry you're struggling with the hours, but it sounds like you're doing the best you can 💖
It will get better!!
thanks so much for all the advice.
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