Newborns Day/Nights Mixed Up

So I know it's common, and it seems DD has her days & nights a little mixed up. She's sleepy from like 6pm-3am or around then.

Do we try to keep her awake more during the day to make her more tired at regular bedtime hours? Do we try to get her to sleep during the night by picking her up, soothing her and putting her back down? I don't know what's appropriate to do for a newborn...I know they're very unpredictable, I just don't want to do things that I shouldn't be doing!

ETA: Is it possible that we've already spoiled her to only really want to sleep in our arms, not in her bassinet?

THANKS

Message edited 7/6/2007 11:01:50 AM.

Re: Newborns Day/Nights Mixed Up

bump

Re: Newborns Day/Nights Mixed Up

I was totally into trying to keep my dd awake more during the day, but I learned quickly that I needed to allow her to find her own natural routine. Basically when the yawns start, I try to encourage a nap. One "rule" that I did follow wais that when possible I would avoid going in the car for a half hour after she ate b/c it put her right to sleep until the next feeding and I needed to fix the whole day night problem. I am totally no expert though.... dd didnt start sleeping the night until she was 3 months.

Re: Newborns Day/Nights Mixed Up

Re: Newborns Day/Nights Mixed Up

how old is she? usually the first few weeks you should just let her sleep whenever b/c that's what she will do during the day anyway...
At night just keep it dim and quiet and do your best to get her to sleep.
I kept the house bright and noisy during the day (it didn't wake her) and I woke her every 3 hours for a feeding if she didn't wake herself.

I believe it got better around 6 weeks...
Oh, and I took her for a lot of walks, the sunlight is supposed to help their internal clock...

Re: Newborns Day/Nights Mixed Up

We've been struggling with this exact thing for the past few weeks. At first, we let her sleep when she wanted to because she was so young. But at about 4 weeks, we decided we needed to do something because I was exhausted from staying up all night long. She'd sleep during the day and then be awake from about 2am - 6 or 7 am.
We started to get really strict with feeding her every 3-4 hours during the day. I'd also wake her about 15 minutes before the feeding so she was wide awake by the time she ate. Sometimes she cried, but I figured it was only for 15 minutes so it wasn't too bad. After she ate, I'd keep her awake for as long as I could. I was aiming to keep her up for at least an hour for each feeding.
At night, I keep the lights and tv off when she's being fed. I don't talk to her, or try to play with her at all. I feed her and then put her down to sleep - that's it.

She's almost 6 weeks old and she seems to have finally figured her days and nights out. She stays up during the day for a few hours at a time - on her own, without me keeping her up. But she also gets some good naps in. Today, she slept from 6pm-2am. Got up to eat and then fell asleep around 3ish.

Good luck!

Re: Newborns Day/Nights Mixed Up

I was told you can't "spoil" an infant. We held DD a lot in the beginning too and I don't see that it has affected her much now. Don't worry!
I would say to try to keep her awake a little later and maybe she will sleep longer in the morning.

Re: Newborns Day/Nights Mixed Up

it is very hard to keep a newborn awake...I would let her sleep when she wants to, all newborns have their days and nights mixed up...it will get better in a few weeks