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This should be a contradiction in terms. Dudelet, at two weeks, sleeps every minute of the day she can. Trying to wake her up if she doesn’t want to elicits a very grumpy reaction. We reckon that she’s in that category of baby that likes to sleep at least 18 hours. The problem is that the majority of the six hours she’s awake seem to be concentrated between 11pm and 6am!
So we’ve embarked on a problem to teach her the difference between daytime and nightime. Day one was yesterday. We mapped out a schedule of roughly three-hourly feeds with an hour of activity in each phase. By the time we reached the last one, she simply chose to carry on sleeping then woke up and resisted going back to sleep at midnightish, two thirty something, four and six. Or thereabouts. Supermum handled the first few then I knelt by her cot from 4:20 am to 4:50 am. She woke up supermum for a snack at six (possibly – time was getting a little muddled) and dudelet woke me up half an hour later.
We mapped out another schedule today. She’s napped through most of it and developed a little cold and sniffle, which probably makes her even less inclined to wake up.
So by lunch time, we gave up and focused on letting her nap in the ‘activity’ areas of the house with the idea that her first nighttime nap (at sevenish) should be in a darkened room, and that night feeds will all take place there.
We can, of course, forgive her absolutely anything. At the moment.
Meanwhile, dudelet has picked up the idea that Father Christmas can see everything you do through tiny cameras that are hidden everywhere. I think one of the childminder’s children has given him this slightly sinister notion of Santa’s access-all-areas knowledge of who’s been good and who hasn’t. Dudelet doesn’t seem overly bothered, possible because he hasn’t yet realised the enormous leverage for blackmail he’s just given me (”Do you realise that Santa has a picture of you doing that on file? Can’t imagine you’ll get that popcorn maker/castle/suit of armour/AK47 now…”)
Filed under: Christmas, baby, family, newborn, sleep | Tagged: baby, sleep, Christmas, family, newborn, night and day, confusing day and night, Santa Claus
Ah, the infamous day/night newborn reversal. I hope you can get her on track soon! I never figured out the trick of that with my babies.
When Squiss was a baby, she had some trouble initially gaining weight quickly, so our pediatrician recommended a waking-and-feeding schedule in which we woke her every 90 min-20 hours during the day and every three-four hours overnight, so that she’d get used to getting most of her calories during daylight hours. That might be something to add? Although I also feel as though we sometimes just have to ride these things out …
In our house Santa has an all-seeing robin redbreast, which plays the same role as the tiny camera, but in a less sinister way. Even in the dark, that robin is apparently peering through our windows.
Good luck with persuading your darling to sleep more at night. Like YogaMum, I never really got that right. I hope you have much more success than us.
Two weeks is still so early…she’ll get into a more acceptable rhythm soon, I’m sure.
Tiny cameras everywhere? Let’s just hope dudelet doesn’t also think all of Santa’s elves look like Agent Smith! We’ve avoided the all-seeing Santa keeping track of bad/good deeds concept with our kids. But…it’s tempting.
I think DR has it right – sometimes, we just have to ride these things out…Does anyone else find Santa quite sinister? I also suspect (this is dudelet we’re talking about) that he’s actually humouring us by believing in Santa at all…
We went through about six weeks of our daughter not sleeping at night. At six weeks old she suddenly switched to a more sensible schedule.
Of course last night she was up until four…
If you succeed, I want the secret!
I’m laughing about the spying Santa. I’m imagining him wearing sunglasses and looking a bit shifty. I wish I had that leverage over Kiko at the moment. A certain person would have been told at least ten times today that Santa was noting down his naughty antics. The repeatedly-punching-the-fridge incident was the most noteworthy.
Kiko was the same as Dudelette at two weeks old. He probably slept more than 18 hours. I often wonder if the hardcore sedatives he was on played a role in that but I don’t think so because he “woke up” a few weeks later. We tried to put him into a routine but it was *impossible* trying to wake him up when he didn’t want to. He was stubborn and determined even at that age, so eventually we gave up and the, ahem, routine book (you probably know which one I’m referring to) ended up in the Vinnies pile. The annoying part is, he goes into his own little routines then every few months they fall apart, even now.
I absolutely love reading your posts about the joys (and challenges) of two little ones. God, how I miss those times!