Newborn Sleep

“Sleep like a baby”. Whoever said that hasn’t battled a baby to sleep, only for them to wake up 5 minutes later.

You’d love to “sleep when baby sleeps” but your baby catnaps for big chunks of the day and night — and only on you. Is it normal or is it troubling? What can you do?

What’s Normal Newborn Sleep?

These early days are known as the fourth trimester - it's the big adjustment from being cuddled up inside for nine-ish months to the cold, bright, wide world. It's very common that babies will only settle when held. Contact napping can be exhausting for parents and sometimes concerns them that they are creating bad habits. At this age, your baby is too young to form habits. You might, but your baby isn't quite that advanced yet. Using prams, carriers, family / friends / doula's support and sidecar basinet to survive these tough initially stages. I won't sugar coat it, these days are can be long & rough but it goes very quickly. This is also a time that it's vitally important to look after yourself too.

Newborn Schedule

The most predictable thing about newborns is how unpredictable they can be.

Sleep, Feed, Play

It’s frequently recommended to follow a ‘sleep, feed, play’ routine. This can work for some babies and not others. Frequently the reality is more like feed, sleep, feed, play, feed, sleep, feed.

You may choose to loosely follow the sleep, feed, play routine but be flexible and responsive to your baby’s cues. Look for their hunger and tired cues as well as signs they are overstimulated from too much socialisation or play.

Newborn Sleep Schedule

After a few weeks, you might start to see a pattern to baby's sleep. Or maybe not. Follow your baby's cues as much as possible.

For those babies who do have a longer sleep in the day, try to limit it to 3.5 hours to avoid impacting their night sleep. Since their tummies are so small, newborns feed frequently during the day to build up a little reserve for night time. If they sleep too long, they won't feed as frequently during the day.

It's very common that newborns will only go down for the night late at night - generally around 9pm but sometimes later. After a few weeks, this might become easier to nap earlier in the evening. Ideally we aim for a 7pm bedtime as the sun goes down.

Awake Windows for Newborns

For newborns, everything is new and stimulating. Think how you feel after a long day at a seminar or work. As such, they can’t tolerate being awake for too long. Usually a newborn will be awake for 30-75 minutes at a time. This may be just long enough for a feed and nappy change. Newborns are unpredictable and can be awake for a matter of minutes and other times hours.

With newborns, awake times are short and you’ll likely not notice the time too much. This becomes more relevant for older babies but may get talked about so useful to know a little about them.

What is an awake window?

When your baby wakes up to the time they go back to sleep again is their awake window. Awake windows can change throughout the course of the day, frequently getting progressively longer as the day goes on. This builds up more ‘sleep pressure’ of an evening to have a longer stretch of sleep overnight.

As newborns have very little routine, awake windows are very variable and may change daily. When babies are older, their awake window starts from when they come out of the cot / bed. If they can stay lying in bed calmly but are awake after their sleep, this is still counted as their rest time.

How much sleep does my newborn need?

Some babies need more or less sleep than the averages and recommendation. There’s huge variations in the sleep needs of babies, just as there is for adults. Take the pressure off yourself and just focus on getting your tired child to sleep rather than counting the minutes and hours they’ve been asleep or awake.

If you do go down the tracking rabbit-hole, then according to Australian research newborns sleep 10-18.5 hours over a 24 hour period (Price et al. 2013). Since there are massive variations in sleep, it’s best to aim for a happy baby. And yes, I did obsessively track my kids sleep.

Tired Signs in a Newborn

• Yawning
  

• Red eyebrows

• Jerky movements

• Hiccups

• Blankly staring into space

By the time your baby is crying, they are likely overtired.

Hiccups may be from trapped gas needing to be burped but can also be a hidden sleep cue.

Your baby may show all or only some cues. For example, my first would get red eyebrows and that was his sweet spot to put him to sleep. With my second, he’d yawn and ten minutes later would be his sweet spot. When I say sweet spot, I mean when I could get them to sleep with the least fuss and resistance.

Settling Techniques for Newborn

• Feed to sleep

• Blow on eyes

• Eyebrow rub: run your finger down the forehead from the middle of the hair line to the bridge of the nose

• Movement: rocking, bouncing on fit ball bounce, carrier, pram, car

• Bum taps

• Calming noises: hums, deep loud breathing, shhh

Playtime for Newborns

Tire babies out during play time so that they are exhausted for sleep time.

Remember that everything is new to your baby. What you see as mundane is exciting and stimulating for them. Having cuddles with adoring visitors can be exhausting. They each have a different smell, touch and voices. In excess, these experiences can be overwhelming for some babies. Each room you walk into might have different subtle sounds like the dishwasher humming away or the ticking of a clock.

Newborn Playtime Ideas

Sleep safety

Day night confusion

Since babies’ sleep is driven by hunger and satisfaction, rather than light and dark, they can get confused about day and night. This can be common.

In the morning, open the blinds fairly quickly after waking up for the day - remember that the awake window isn’t long in a newborn so can’t dilly dally too much on opening the blinds.

Go outside during the day and expose to sunlight. Walks and getting fresh air can also be amazing for your mental health.

Know that you are the best parent for your child. Ask them in a few years time and they’ll tell you that.

It does get easier.