STM and forgot how much newborns sleep! She sleeps most of the day (only 5 days old). Should I try and stimulate her to have a bit of a wake period during the day? I forgot what my son did already and he’s only 2.5, lol

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My 5 day old sleeps a lot also, I just try to aim for at least 15-30 minutes of awake time between naps if I can, but if she’s tired I don’t push it, I’ve had way to many bad experiences with accidentally keeping babies up and having a cranky overly tired
Baby and it’s so much harder to get them to sleep after that.

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Newborns just sleep A LOT. As they say, “sleep begets sleep”. Then they tend to be less settled at night. I pretty much let baby sleep, but wake her during the day about the 2-3 hour mark. That way she can get more calories during the day and maybe not need as many at night. But if baby wants to sleep, there’s not much you can wake them for “play” time.
It seems to have worked for her— she’s gone 4-5 hour stretches at night (2 weeks old). Last night, I actually had her do a dream feed and she slept 7 hours straight!
This is baby #5, and pediatrician suggested keeping lights off/low and allowing her time to be in quiet area, away from my other kids for about 20 minutes. If there’s a lot of noise, they just sleep and listen. I’ve noticed she’ll have awake time when it’s quiet like that.

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Congratulations

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Yes! The more awake time they get in the day, the more feeding they’ll do in the day vs at night and the quicker they’ll regulate from the day/night confusion. Aim for offering a feed at least every 2-3 hours and a nap every 60-90 mins with some awake time mixed in there. It doesn’t have to be perfectly on schedule but it’ll help loads.

STM and forgot how much newborns sleep! She sleeps most of the day (only 5 days old). Should I try and stimulate her to have a bit of a wake period during the day? I forgot what my son did already and he’s only 2.5, lol

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