For the first 7ish weeks of Squidge's life, he had his days and nights mixed up and it was a nightmare. I think it must be quite common with Autumn/Winter babies, as often in the day it's dark and bleak, and in the evenings we have the lights on making it bright. We got to the stage where we were up with him until about 6am night after night and it was horrific... we didn't know what we were doing wrong, but we were doing the same thing every night and hoping for a different result (definition of insanity non?), so we made some changes, and we saw immediate results.
While I'm sure there's many different ways to help fix this, this is what worked for us. That's not to say it'll necessary work for you, but if you're anything like I was, and you're reading this, then I'm sure you're willing to try anything, I know we were.
Routine is so important. It doesn't necessarily matter what time you do this routine, it can change day-to-day, but the going-to-bed part is really important, so that when you go through the motions, they'l know this means it's sleep time. Here's what we do every night, the time varies depending on when his feeds fall, but it's about 8-9pm each night.
I take him upstairs and put his lamp on the lowest setting in his nursery. I change his nappy and don't talk to him - the feed before this one is where I'd change him into his sleepsuit, I find doing it as part of the going to bed routine wakes him up to much as he's started to cry when we change his clothes.
Then, with my warm bottle, we go into the bedroom where his moses basket it, leaving the light off so that just the light from his nursery lights up our room, I just need it light enough to see his face to be able to feed him. I sit on the bed and feed him in the dark, again not speaking to him. It's a very quiet and calm feed. Even if he cries, I don't speak to him, but I will make ssssssh sounds while I'm trying to get him sleepy.
Once the feed is done, I burp him, once that's done I cuddle him, put his dummy in and rock him until he's sleepy. Once he's sleepy I put him down in his moses basket and usually he'll fall right asleep. If he starts crying, I'll pick him back up, get him sleepy and put him back down, it's just repeating those steps.
I walk away and head downstairs and watch him on the monitor - we'll only go back up to him if he's really crying, or if he's spat the dummy out - usually just putting that back in is enough to send him straight back off, even if his eyes are wide open. The first night we tried this, he didn't wake up until about 1am for that feed, this went on for about a week or so, then he dropped that feed and started sleeping through until about 7-8am.
I'm realistic in that I know it could all chance, especially when he's teething, but for now he's sleeping through the night, and getting regular naps in the day (about 2-3 hours in the morning, and about 30-60 mins after or before each feed in the day). Sleep is super important for babies, they're learning so much and doing so much growing that they really need to rest, it helps them retain all the things they've just learned. The days when he doesn't sleep much in the day time we really see a difference in him, he'll be much more grouchy and cries a lot more, so we know he needs it.
One thing to be careful of, this routine does lend itself to you letting them fall asleep on you first, which is a habit that I've gotten into that I'm in the process of breaking, and so far so good :)
The biggest things to remember:
- Stick to the routine, even if it doesn't work straight away, the routine itself is really important
- Do the last feed in the dark
- Don't speak to them during the last feed, it needs to be quiet & calm
- Make day-time feeds more happy and fun, chat away to them so they can see the different between day and night feeds
I hope that's been helpful, please leave a comment if you try this and let me know how you get on. Or if you've fixed the same problem but a different way, please do leave a comment with your tips for other mums & dads :)
