Help my 4 week old son isn't sleeping during the day!

sarafoster12 · #1 (**permalink**) 12-13-2006, 04:36 PM

Hello - I am new here! I've been trying to find online forums so that I can get some advice on what to do for my 4 week old son.

Ever since Sunday, my son has not been sleeping well during the days. At night, he’s still sleeping wonderfully. He goes down around 7-7:30pm and sleeps until about 6am with only waking up twice during the nights. So I can’t complain there! But it’s the daytimes that are killing me!!!! He sleeps most of the mornings because we are always in the car dropping/picking up my daughters and running errands but once we get home around 12:30pm, it’s trouble from there. For the past 4 days he’s been up from 12:30ish until 6:30pm with only a few small catnaps on me. He nurses and then falls asleep and as soon as I put him in his crib, he wakes and begins to screech. I just don’t understand it – he sleeps all night in his crib without any problems but he won’t sleep in it during the day. But the worst thing about it is that by the time 2pm rolls around, he’s so tired that he’s inconsolable. And forget about dinner time. And, even when he wakes up after sleeping all morning, he’s still cranky. My little mellow man went from being so mellow and quiet to this cranky baby. The weird this is that it happened so suddenly. He was sleeping great both day and night and then all the sudden on Sunday, he wouldn’t sleep during the day. I’m at a loss!! He's only 4 weeks old so I know he needs more sleep during the days than he's currently getting.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated!!
Sara

Zennifer · #2 (**permalink**) 12-20-2006, 04:59 PM

Hi! Nice to meet you! That's how old my DS is too, only he wakes up probably every hour to 2 hours to nurse! Out of interest, what does your pediatrician say about sleeping for almost 12 hours at a time without nursing/having a bottle? I was told to wake my baby after 3-4 hours if he hasn't eaten because their stomachs are so small until about 3 months old.

About not sleeping in the afternoon... I just looked at the National Sleep Foundation's site http://www.sleepfoundation.org/hottopics/index.php?secid=11&id=384 and read that newborns sleep anywhere from 10-18 hours in a 24 hour period, the average is 14.5 hours... if your baby is sleeping from 7:30pm to 6am, and then is sleeping all morning until 12:30pm then you are achieving that range of sleep time - even if the sleep in the morning is broken up. For a newborn it doesn't matter how long a nap is, just that if you add up all their naps it equals over 10 hours of sleep... I feel like my little guy doesn't sleep much because he wakes me up all the time to feed, but I bet if I added up his 30 mins here, 45 minutes there it would equal more than 10 hours in a 24 hour period...

So unfortunately, with a newborn that is the only thing you need to worry about is if they are getting more than 10 hours in the 24 hour period... if they are, then there isn't a sleep "problem" from a medical standpoint, or from your newborn's standpoint either... I'm just reading "The No Cry Sleep Solution" by Elizabeth Pantley (for whom this message board is named) in the section she wrote for 0-4 months and she starts out pointing out that newborns don't have sleep problems; it's us that need to adjust... basically as long as you sleep when your baby sleeps and you get enough sleep, then that is good.

I'm not sure what to say about this situation because most babies this age wake on average every 1.5-4 hours to feed, and then they may be wakeful for a while during that time... but you say your baby is just sleeping straight through. It does seem to be a problem in that babies this age don't tend to be awake for more than 30 minutes to an hour at a time, but now that your baby has used up what sounds like 14+ hours sleeping straight through at night and then all morning, he is truly not going to be sleepy because he's slept quite enough, but he will be quite irritated and overstimulated during the afternoon because that is too long to be awake... maybe I'll e-mail Elizabeth Pantley about this type of situation because I've never seen it before.

I'll try to check into this!

Hang in there!

Zennifer · #3 (**permalink**) 01-17-2007, 03:41 PM

Hi again! PM for you!

Zennifer · #4 (**permalink**) 01-17-2007, 03:51 PM

Hi,
I tried to send you a private message, but your account is set up to not allow them. Elizabeth Pantley, the author of the book has written a letter to me with info to help with your questions, and I'd love to share it with you. Please let me know if you'd like to hear her tips.