Your baby doesn’t know if it’s night or day ?
Some babies start sleeping on what’s called a day/night reversal schedule.
Your baby sleeps well during the day, but is awake and busy at night.
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 your baby fall asleep .
Get your baby outside and in the sun (make sure they’re well protected, of course).
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.
Keep lights low or turn them out at night anywhere near baby’s sleeping area. Likewise for sound and movement. Your goal should be zero disruptions
Consider swaddling your baby at night so their arms and legs don’t move and wake them. You can also try putting them to sleep in a small crib, so they feel snug and secure.
Your baby is hungry
Your newborn isn’t eating all that much in a single feeding. If you’re breastfeeding, the milk is digested quickly. That means a baby can wake up hungry and ready to fill their belly.
Hunger is a common reason babies wake during the night. Babies need to eat to grow, so it’s not healthy to try and change this need or retrain it.
Thirst is another reason babies wake up. A drink of breast milk or formula may do the trick.
Your baby doesn’t feel well
There’s almost always something going on with your newborn’s body, and a lot of it is uncomfortable.
Your baby may:
Be teething
Have gas
Be constipated
Have a cold or allergies
Every one of those things will cause a baby to wake up often during the night. Check with your pediatrician if you suspect pain or allergies could be the culprit.
If you think gas is the problem, there are some natural remedies that can help, such as massaging your baby to relieve the gas.
Your baby is wired
Babies are sensitive. Too much stimulation can throw them off their sleeping game.
Stimulation might come in the form of mom eating too much chocolate that comes out in her milk, too much pinching from Aunt Joanne, or just too much daytime play.
Baby’s wakefulness at night is often a clue for mothers who breastfeed that something in their diet is not agreeing with their baby’s tummies.
Other caregivers find that a busy day full of noise and activity makes it hard for their baby to switch to resting mode.
Next steps
In most cases, your newborn is awake at night during short phases of those early months of life. But it 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.
