Activity time for a newborn?

[habville]

Hello.  I have a 9-day-old DS, and was wondering what is reasonable to expect for activity out of such a young baby???  I'm doing good to keep him awake at all between feedings, much less engaged enough to call it "activity".  I will try to sing to him at times.  Sometimes we will just do gas-relieving exercises (legs/knees to chest, bicycle motion with legs).  He will somewhat look at black & white pictures and track faces & lights.  Is this pretty much what I can expect right now?  I read that people have implemented EASY from day one, but how effectively can you really do activities this early on?  I'd love to hear what other people's experiences with their newborns have been.  This is my first child, so I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed with being a new mommy and trying to sort through it all!

Thanks!
Heather

[Lana]

Basically at this age eating and a diaper change are all you will get out of them.  Congrats on your new little one

[Erin M]

At this point, if you're keeping him awake for a bit after eating, you're doing a wonderful job   There's not a whole lot of "activity" yet at this point -- and actually, if you try to do too much, you'll just end up overstimulating him.  So carry on - and congrats on your new son

[Edisonsmom]

Hi there,
I have a one-month old DS and he has longer periods of awake times now after feedings (1 hour or so) but I've been noticing that after his mid-morning feeding, the only activity I can get in is a diaper change before he nods off again (like habville's 9-day old). If I try to wake him to play, he just gets cranky, so I put him down.  My questions are: 1) should I try harder to keep him awake for activity before putting him down?  2) if I can't keep him up and he wakes before his next feeding time (which his ususally does since he didn't spend time playing), should I try be trying to get him back to sleep again or do activity after the nap before the next feeding?  Any thoughts? Thanks!

[Erin M]

Hi Edisonsmom--
It's really such a progression at this age for them to be able to stay awake longer.  It may be that he is able to cope with some longer periods of awake time, but also needs some shorter ones to make up for the longer ones.  If some very mellow activity - looking out the window, laying on a blanket - is really too much for him at that point and he really needs to sleep, I would let him sleep.  If he's waking early for his feeds, first off, is he hungry?  I don't know if you're bottle feeding or nursing, but even at a month, 3 hours is sometimes a bit too long for some LOs to go.  If you're sure it's not hunger, then a lot depends on what he's like when he wakes up.  If he seems like he's still tired, I would try to get him to go back to sleep - if he takes a paci, you can put that back in as soon as you see him stirring and try to get him back to sleep that way -- or try some pat/shhh to lull him back to sleep.  If he's truly awake when he wakes up and seems like he's in need of some activity, then I would do some activity before the next feeding -- in which case your EASY really looks something like EASAE -- which isn't that uncommon in the early days.  If you post your schedule here or on the main EASY board, we can try to give you some help, or you could check out some of the sample ones in the EASY forum.
Good luck!

[mommyoftwo]

I have posted this question on the 2006 thread but thought I'd ask on this thread.  My DD is 9 weeks but, she barely stays awake (after feed) for 5 to 10 min.  During her 1st PM nap, she downed her bottle at Noon, and by 12:15 she's tired.  So, I put her down for her nap (took approx. 20 min), which means (if she stays asleep until her next feed) she'll get almost 3 hours of nap.  Her next feed is at 3 PM.  Won't her night time sleep get affected if this pattern continues?  Her bedtime is anywhere between 6:30 and 7:00.

[Erin M]

Hi mommyoftwo--
Will she actually sleep for 3 hours if you let her sleep at this point?  9 weeks is so very early and they're still sorting out their sleep patterns at this point.  If it's not affecting her nighttime sleep at this point, I wouldn't worry about it.  I'm sure that as she gets older and is able to stay up for longer periods of time, this nap will shorten itself.  At 9 weeks, it's very hard to keep them up if they don't want to be up anyway - I would think that if you can keep her up for just a little bit after her bottle, just so she doesn't develop a feed to sleep association, I would just let the naps follow as they will.  Chances are, she won't sleep straight through until her next feed and then you'll have that EASAE pattern that I described above (which is also pretty normal at this stage and will sort itself out as she's able to stay up for longer and longer periods of time.

You can check out this post (if you haven't already) about how to get your routine started - good luck
https://babywhispererforums.com/index.php?topic=1993.0

[mommyoftwo]

Thanks Erin.  I already have an EASY routine for her since she was 2 or 3 wks old.  I was just worried about too much sleep but, not anymore.  Thanks.  Yes, there are times that I have to wake her up and at others she's right on cue (now that her tummy issues are out of the way).  Everyday seems to be different -- that is, we face different challenges on a daily basis.  I guess that's just part of the process that we have to all go through!

[Erin M]

Excellent that you've had an EASY routine in place for so long - makes things easier in the long run.  Sounds like she's sorting herself out well!