8 day old sweetie is totally nocturnal!

[kjr928]

So I had this beautiful little girl last week! She is very sweet and adorable, but she sleeps ALL day, and she's awake for about 3-4 hours at night (starting when I'm ready to go to sleep).

I try to wake her up all day long, and she does wake for feedings, but always passes out while still latched to me and then won't wake up no matter what I do. I also have a 2 year old and an (almost) 5 year old in the house. They make all kinds of noise and she just doesn't care.

Needless to say, I'm really tired and luckily my husband will be home from work for another week and a half to help me.

We are obviously not on an easy routine yet, but it's been something like this:
Wake & feed
Pass out for 2-3 hours (with multiple attempts to wake)
Repeat all day
11pm wake up & feed
WIDE AWAKE and wants to feed every 15 minutes. I basically can't put her down at all until 3am.

The obvious solution would be to keep her awake during the day more, and I try, but she is comatose. Also a little worried about her becoming a snacker.  Any suggestions?

[Erin M]

Congrats!  I don't have spectacular advice, but my #3 was exactly the same way.  I used to put him in the middle of our living room with my older two running around him, sunlight on him all day long, and he still slept all day and wanted to awake at night.  On the plus side, day/night reversal tends to straighten itself out around the 6 week mark - which makes for some rough weeks in the interim for you.  Everything I read at the time said to work on keeping things quiet and dark at night time, minimal interaction, etc and keeping the baby out in the sunshine during the day whenever possible (December is not really a big sunshine month in NY, I know).  The feeding was tricky for me as well during the day, he was so asleep I had a hard time getting him to eat during the day without falling asleep.  I was trying all the usual tricks - stripping some of his clothes, rubbing his hands while he ate, etc but it was a pretty challenging bunch of weeks until he reversed.  And I also know that it's really hard to find time to sleep when you have older kids.  Mine tended to finally pass out around 3/4 AM and do a good stretch of sleep until the morning so dh would handle getting dd1 ready for school, while dd2 watched way too much tv while I slept.  I have a distinct memory of driving into a mailbox when ds was a baby because I was so tired.  On the plus side, he did eventually turn into a fabulous sleeper.  His routine took longer as he was always being dragged to places with his sisters, but it did eventually all come together. 

[~*Nicole*~]

Congratulations!

I had baby #3 in June and our beginning sounds like it was pretty similar. Lots of eating overnight and sleeping during the day. I promise that all of the things you are already doing will eventually start to work. Her whole body clock has to be set by exposure to light now that she's on the outside! It's like she has the worst jet lag ever! Plus as she becomes more alert and doesn't get quite so sleepy from hormones in your milk she'll be less sleepy while she eats as time goes on.

While DH is home I would try to see if you can get some sleep in when she is sleeping and maybe see if you can arrange for someone to stop by periodically to help out once he's back to work as well? Maybe another friend or family member? 

She'll probably hit a growth spurt and/or start waking up more before she becomes a snacker. Those things will cause her to/allow her to take fuller feeds and you'll probably be fine.

Enjoy your beautiful little girl!