The top reasons why your newborn isn’t sleeping at night include hunger, illness, and not understanding the time of day.
“Just sleep when the baby sleeps” is great advice if your little one is actually getting some rest. But what if you spend more time pacing the halls with a wide-eyed newborn than you do catching some Zzz’s?
Read on to learn five common reasons why some babies like the nightlife and what you can do to get back on the sleep train.
Some babies start sleeping on what’s called a day/night reversal schedule. This means your baby sleeps well during the day but is awake and busy at night. It’s frustrating and exhausting, but it’s just temporary.
Here are a few things you can do to help your baby learn that day is for play and night is for rest:
- Keep them awake a little longer during each waking period during the day: This will help increase the need for sleep later. Some sleep experts recommend playing with your baby for a few minutes after a feeding instead of letting them fall asleep.
- Get your baby outside and in the sun: Natural light
helps reset their internal clock. If you can’t get outside, place your baby’s crib or sleeper near a window that gets steady, bright light. Make sure they’re well protected from the sun, though. - Avoid sleep-inducing activities, if possible, during the day: Don’t fight your baby’s need to sleep. But if you can keep them out of the car seat for a bit, that extra time awake will help them (and you) later.
- At night, keep lights low or turn them off near baby’s sleeping area: Also limit sound and movement while your baby is asleep at night. Your goal should be zero disruptions.
- Consider swaddling your baby at night: Swaddling can help keep their arms and legs still so they don’t move and wake themself up. You can also try putting them to sleep in a small crib, which may help them feel snug and secure.
Newborns don’t eat much in a single feeding. If your baby is consuming breast milk, they will digest it quickly. This means they can wake up hungry and ready to fill their belly again.
Hunger is a common reason babies wake during the night. Babies need to eat to grow, so it’s not healthy to try to change this need or train your baby to act differently.
Even if you know that you just fed baby a couple of hours earlier, offer breast milk or formula to see if food is what your little one needs when they can’t sleep at night.
Thirst is another reason babies wake up. A drink of breast milk or formula may do the trick.
There’s almost always something going on with your newborn’s body, and a lot of it is uncomfortable.
Your baby may:
- have a cold or other illness
- have gas
- be constipated
Every one of those things might cause a baby to wake up often during the night. Check with your pediatrician if you suspect that pain or illness could be the reason they’re not sleeping.
If you think gas is the problem, some natural remedies may help, such as massaging your baby to relieve the gas.
Some babies are so attached to their parents, they can’t waste time on sleep. Your baby may need to know where you are or simply be near you.
Some parents find that sleeping in the same room helps baby feel close while still allowing the parents to get some rest. Note that the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends sharing a room but not a bed with your baby.
Babies are sensitive. Too much stimulation can throw them off their sleeping game.
Stimulation might come in the form of a nursing parent consuming too much caffeine, which then comes out in their milk. It could also be from receiving too much attention from visitors or just engaging in too much daytime play.
Baby’s wakefulness at night might be a clue for parents who nurse that something in their diet is not agreeing with their baby’s tummy.
Other caregivers find that a busy day full of noise and activity makes it hard for their baby to switch to resting mode.
You can’t take back what’s already happened, but you can learn to gauge your baby’s threshold for activity. Maybe a trip to the park and a visit with the grandparents is all your baby can do for the day.
Don’t push for dinner with the neighbors, too, if you realize that means your baby isn’t going to be able to wind down and get some sleep.
In most cases, your newborn is awake at night for short phases of their early months of life. It can seem like an eternity when you’re exhausted, but this sleeping pattern often lasts for just a few days or weeks.
It’s also likely that most of the reasons your little one is awake are temporary and not emergencies.
That said, there is an increasing call in the medical community for pediatricians to listen to parents when they say their babies don’t sleep.
If you think your child is experiencing an undiagnosed illness or allergy, push your doctor to take your concerns seriously. It could be the key to both you and your baby getting some much-needed rest.