Baby Sleep

Hey! My baby is also 9 weeks, I have never heard the advice to keep babies awake in the day time to prevent them being up all night, especially at this age. I’ve heard the opposite- encouraging proper naps and wake windows in the day actually helps them sleep at night. It’s much harder to soothe an overtired baby. That being said I wouldn’t let your baby do a huge long nap super close to bed time. My baby is like yours in that sometimes she’ll do long stretches of sleep and then have long wake windows, I do try to wake her in those long stretches of sleep atleast to eat and be changed so she is awake a bit. Do you get outside often? Being exposed to daylight is supposed to help babies differentiate night time to day time. You could also try different routines for daytime vs night time sleep, if you haven’t already, for example only swaddling at night or only playing white noise at night.

Also, my baby wouldn’t go to bed before 1 am at first and we slowly have moved it 15 minutes back and now it’s about 10:30. I am by no means an expert and am just winging this every day but I hope that helps, hang in there mama!

Here are some things we do that helped: - do not use black out curtains in the day time - around 7am open the blinds in your bedroom or wherever the baby sleeps and keep them open so that they realize it's daytime - take the baby near the window in the morning for a few mins so that they realize it's day time - don't be super quiet during the day. Let there be some noise from normal regular activities (i.e., talking, listening to music, watching any tv, doing dishes, etc) so that they learn to realize the difference between day sleep (which has some noises) and night sleep (where it's quiet) - it's helpful to start playing a sound machine when you are putting them down for sleep at night so that they know it's night time sleep - only swaddle at night. During the daytime, just put a blanket on them - download and use the Huckleberry app. It will actually tell you your baby's sleep patterns. Also once the baby is 2 months, you can use the app to sleep train. It's worth getting the paid version!

Don’t keep him up! Unfortunately that is some bad advice that you’ve been given :( Babies need a certain amount of sleep within 24 hours and he won’t get that from the night alone, which will cause you more issues. Follow his cues and let him sleep when he wants, but to encourage melatonin production (which only starts around 6-8 weeks old, I believe), you can make sure he sees natural light during the day and keep it darker in the evening before bed. Establish a bedtime routine, too..

I also have a 9 week old 😊 im definitely not an expert but I’m happy to share a couple things that I think have helped my wee guy sort out day vs. Night… -outside time .. I have him out for a walk at least once every day and if I can’t get for a walk we spend time near windows for day light -following his sleep cues during the day (from my readings a 9 week old should have wake windows 1-1.5 hours long).. my baby is more of a 1.5-2.5 wake window guy. If I try to make him sleep before he’s tired he just won’t sleep! -a consistent bed time routine since about 5 weeks old … he actually consistently is sleeping 10 plus hours at night I have never capped his naps during the day nor do I wake to feed him. I stopped doing that as soon as he surpassed his birth weight. He also sometimes will fall asleep before the nighttime routine and we will still do the entire routine with him. For example: he fell asleep tonight at 8 on his own and we still did his typical 9pm bed routine of bath…

…swaddle, bottle and bed. If he is excessively sleepy during the day I let him sleep. The way I see it is if he’s that sleepy then he’s probably growing. He wakes when he’s hungry. During his wake windows I keep him busy until I see his sleepy cues then I start the process of nap time. Some things I do during his wake windows are: talk to him, floor time, tummy time, read/sing to him, or some baby massage which he loves. Other times he just chills out beside me and takes in the world around him. All that to say.. every baby is so different and what works for one will probably be way different for others :) but these are things that we do that I think have helped!