Days and Nights!

Honey, I feel for you my youngest son was not a good sleeper at all either and it was so hard to even make it through the day sometimes. The good news is it will get better, I know that doesn't help much now but it does. I was always told the first three months are the hardest and they were. It seems really unfair that after the toll pregnancy and child birth took on your body that you not only have to deal with hormone issues, a new baby but sleep deprivation too. I know a lot of people suggest starting cereal to fill baby up and hopefully get her to sleep longer but I never really had any luck with that and once had a doctor tell me that a babies tummy can only hold so much food at a time so really no matter how much you try to fill her up she probably will want to eat as often as she always has. I have four children and the thing that always worked best for me was to make sure that during the day when she is sleeping you dont tip-toe around go about your daily activities turn the lights on open the blinds let her know this is the time to be up. Then at night when my kids would wake up I would change their diaper only if they had pooped or were really wet and did it with little or no light and no matter how much they smiled or cooed I would try not to play, I would whisper to them feed them and try to lay them back down, if they cried and didnt want to go back to bed i would get them back up(I never could let them just cry, and at this young age you can't) and rock them till they were ready to go back to bed. I really think this helped them get their days and nights straight, your baby will crave the interaction of the day and want to be up then. My only other advice is rest as much as possible with your baby let the housework go for now get some sleep whenever you can. Good Luck!! And remember it will get easier.

hi S. i have a 4 month old daughter she goes to bed at 8:30 pm and sleeps till 7:30 am. first start out with making her day bottles 3 hours apart wake her up to feed her once this is going good up her ounces by an ounce at each feeding. and then do your night time routine when you want her in bed at night. my daughter did the samething now she sleeps awesome and we just started eating 8 ounce bottles every 4 hours she goes to the dr in a week and going to check her weight and start her on cereal.
at two months old their tummies cant handle the cereal and you might get an allergy. i would see if you could fix it with formula or if your breasfeeding try to pump some or try to get her to nurse longer. i think with breastfed babies getting them to sleep thru the night might be harder. i havent breastfed any of my 4 children so i dont really know on that aspect. but try to get her to take more ounces if you are formula feeding and if breastfeding i would try to get her to nurse longer and not let her fall asleep. hope this helps W.

We gave our babies some rice cereal at night and I think it helped them sleep through. Also about an hour before our baby's bedtime was Daddy's time to "wrestle" with them. He would play with them and get them tired out...even when they were tiny...moving their arms and legs around (kind of like mini physical therapy, lol) and it was his time with them every night before I fed them and put them down. I learned about it watching my older sister and her husband with their kids before I had mine.

I can't give you much advise there, because mine is over a year old and just starting to sleep through the night, if I got lucky. She was up twice last night, 1:30am and 3:30am. All I can tell you is hang in there and they will be there sooner or later.

S.,

My name is J.. My youngest will be 1 year old at the beginning of April and she didn't get her days and nights straight until she was probably 3 or 4 months old. What two of my friends did is they put their daughters on a schedule. I personally couldn't see myself doing that. So, I let my daughter make her own schedule and now she is down before 8 and will get up anywhere between 5 and 7 the next morning. please keep me posted at ____@____.com. I enjoy the friends that I make and I try to keep them.

You just need to be a little more patient. Try cutting her naps little by little during the day so she will sleep a little longer at night. You really don't want her to be able to sleep that long during the night yet as they are unable to totally control breathing etc. Around 3 mos. they usually start to sleep for 5-7hrs. straight. Hang in there!

S., I am a mother of three beautiful children. My youngest is 11mths. and in true reality, still is not sleeping through the night. She goes to bed between 7 and 8 but wakes up again between 11 and 12 and wants a bottle. She then goes right back to sleep and sleeps until 7:30 or 8. Her sleeping habits are far different from the other two as they were both sleeping through the night when they were 2 and 3 weeks old. All I can tell you is that each child is different and it just takes time. In the meantime, catch your zzz's any chance you can get. Also, if I were you I would not start your baby on cereal just yet. She is still too little and it could cause her to have many tummy aches or even vomiting...(speaking from experience.) Hang in there, things will get better, you just have to give it time.