Day/Night Mixup Help - Infant Care (up to 18 months old) Message Board

Mommie-2-B · 01-31-2006, 02:20 PM

My little one is almost 5 weeks old and for this past week he's mixed up his day and nights again. He's sleeping long stretches (4-6 hours) during the day and early evening and 2-3 hour stretches at night. Any advice to help him back?

2fst · 02-01-2006, 07:18 AM

I would say don't let him sleep those long streches during the day. Wake him up. My Dr said to always wake them up during the day to eat and never at ngiht. Also, make sure there is a big difference in your house between night and day. At night only have enough light so you can see and don't turn on the tv and don't talk to him. During the day all the lights are on and everything. Try to have him sleep less during the day and if possible keep trying to put him back down at night. If he eats every 2/3 hours wake him up during the day exactly when his next feeding is.

Celestine · 02-01-2006, 08:52 AM

DS was the same way for the first few weeks. Like 2fast4u said, just make sure there's a big difference between day and night. Keep things bright. Here I always had some sort of noise. TV or stereo and I just did my housework no matter if he was sleeping or not. At night, all lights off. We had the tv on so we could see but we never turned any other lights on when he was in the room. Try not to talk to them or even look at them during feeding. The looking was hard. DS would stare at me to try to get me to look at him but I've read that eye contact is like a shot of caffeine to their system. If he was crying I tried to rub him and massage him rather than talking to him. We woke DS up every 2 hours no matter what during the afternoon but let him go as long as he wanted at night. We only every swaddled during the night and I change his warm flannel jammies for his cooler clothes every morning. DS learned really quick and was sleeping most of the night by 12 weeks. Oh and don't force them to stay up late in hopes that they're more tired at night. It doesn't work, and many times they get over tired and sleep even worse.

Mommie-2-B · 02-01-2006, 02:25 PM

I keep things pretty loud around here during the day, but he still sleeps! I was vaccuming the other day and I thought for sure he was going to wake up, but he didn't. I think the eye contact thing might be it. And this just started recently, maybe when his days and nights got mixed up.

He will drift off only to wake up and see if I'm looking at him. And of course I am! And when he sees me he gets a HUGE grin on his face. He'll do this over and over again. And because I'm so amazed by his expression, I can't quit looking at him. I'll try this tonight and see if it changes anything.