Tired?? Duh! Newborns can sleep between 14 and 17 hours during the day, leading to exhausting evenings for you and your baby.
Why your newborn is more wakeful at night
Babies grow inside the womb where there is no light for months, it will take some time to get used to expectations about days and nights. As an adult, you have a fully developed circadian rhythm, or “internal clock,” but your baby does not. Irregular sleep patterns and night wakings are typical and expected in this newborn stage.
Day-night confusion will decrease in the coming weeks
Your baby won’t develop the hormone regulation that supports their circadian rhythm until closer to three months. In the interim, try to maintain flexible rhythms with plentiful exposure to sunlight during the day, dim lights in the evening, and darkness at night.
Here are some additional tips:
Let daytime be daytime.If you usually play music over breakfast, go ahead and play music. By going about your regular daytime routine, you provide helpful external cues to your baby that it is, indeed, daytime.
Keep night feeds “boring.”You can be loving and responsive to their night feeds without engaging them in a way that signals “time to play!”
Try a swaddle for nighttime sleep.If your newborn has not started rolling, using a swaddle can promote longer stretches of nighttime sleep.
Build a relaxing evening rhythm.Try a bedtime routine that signals time to relax. Bedtime routines should be short and repeatable, such as bath, feeding session, and one book or lullaby.