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My one week old daughter is far more active at night than in the daytime. During the day she'll sleep for hours and usually has to be woken for feeds, but at night she rarely sleeps for more than an hour at a time.

Does anyone have any tips for reversing this antisocial sleep pattern?

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4 Answers

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The sleep cycles will most likely move soon.

I read in various books that you have to make a clear difference between night and day:

  • At night, keep it dark, even if the baby is active. Try only a small, indirect light, and keep noise down.
  • During the day, even if the baby sleeps, do not close window blinds, and do not be especially considerate with the noise.
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+1 for "do not be especially considerate with the noise". Our son (three months) sleeps through anything, and I believe it is because when he was just born we took no steps to quiet our normal daily activities, so now he just sleeps through them. – Matthew Jones Jan 26 at 19:45
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It's still pretty early on, so I wouldn't worry too much about your baby's sleep pattern, but the other commenters are right about creating "daytime" and "night-time" atmospheres that the baby will pick up on.

One thing we did was to not swaddle the baby during the day, and to let him nap mostly in his swing or bouncy chair. At night, he was swaddled and would sleep in his bassinet/crib.

Congrats on the new baby & good luck!

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Um. How did you manage it during the day without swaddling? Maybe it's just a language-barrier-misunderstanding, but the way I understand that is to be without diapers during the day? – brandstaetter Jan 28 at 14:32
Yes, I think we're using "swaddling" differently. For us, swaddling is wrapping the baby tightly in receiving blankets, as described here: moms4mom.com/questions/3217/… Going without a diaper would certainly make for an exciting daytime routine, though. ;) Sorry for the confusion. – BetsyB Jan 28 at 15:59
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I would start by trying to make a difference between night time sleep and daytime sleep, by being active a noisy around the baby during the day and i found letting baby sleep downstairs amongst the noise of day time activity and at night putting baby to sleep upstairs in a darker/quieter room. They should soon pick up on the difference and start sleeping better a night, and perhaps shorten the lengh of naps during the day. Hope you get some sleep soon.

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All 4 of my kids did that, it's a adjusting to being outside the womb thing. Before they were born, you were constantly rocking them to sleep all day just by moving around normally, and at night when you were still and trying to sleep, they would wake up and become more active, so what we end up with are little ones whos sleep cycles are opposite to ours. She'll almost certainly outgrow it in another week or so, especially if you make night-time more womb-like, (swaddling, white-noise, dark and cozy), and day-time sleeps much less so.
Good luck, have fun getting to know the new love in your life! (And catch all the sleep you can, when and where you can!)

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That's an interesting theory. Kind of like how kids fall asleep in the car due to the motion. – Scott Jan 28 at 11:40
That's how it was explained to me by my maternity nurse when I had my oldest almost 18 years ago. It's always made sense to me because in your third term, they tell you if you can't remember if the babies been moving to lie down and be still so it will wake up and give you a kick to get you going again. – Neen Jan 31 at 7:32

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