Your Newborn Won't Sleep? How to Get Through the First Months

Newborns are so sweet. If only sleep weren't part of the deal…

Maybe you're feeling what so many new moms feel (and what I felt at the beginning of my own life as a mother): suddenly your whole world is upside down.

(You probably know exactly what I mean.)

Somehow we all carry around those lovely images of tiny babies lying peacefully in their bassinets, sound asleep and utterly content.

And then a few weeks in, you notice: that doesn't seem to be their strong suit at all. Especially in the early morning hours.

Below you'll find plenty of useful information about those first tender months with a baby:

• Your newborn won't sleep? Why is that?
• Which expectations are realistic, and which aren't?
• What does daily life with a newborn actually look like?
• Crying phases: why they happen and what you can do
• When do newborns have growth spurts?
• A detailed overview of sleep needs and sleep patterns

Why Won't My Newborn Sleep?

You have the feeling that your newborn just isn't sleeping well?

Why is that?

You've certainly noticed by now that your need for sleep and your baby's need for sleep are not on the same page.

And that's true even though a newborn sleeps up to 18 hours a day. The catch is how those hours are distributed: unpredictably, in a pattern that takes a lot of getting used to, spread across day and night, with loud requests for you in between.

A newborn's body is practically built for short naps and frequent feedings. Shortly after birth, your baby's stomach is roughly the size of a hazelnut.

That wasn't a problem while your little one was still floating in amniotic fluid. All they had to do was open their mouth, and warm liquid nourishment flowed right in.

Picture it for a moment: life inside you was the land of plenty. And now your brand-new little person is out in the world. Hunger and thirst have to be satisfied outside your belly from here on. And with a very, very small stomach.

Sleep and Feeding

Even though that stomach grows to about the size of a chicken egg by day 14, the principle stays the same: your sweet little one needs regular nourishment to keep the whole machine running. Within a few months, they'll manage to outgrow several clothing sizes.

Pretty incredible, isn't it?

Sleeping and eating are clearly the two biggest components of your newborn's life (weeks 0 to 12). And they're tightly connected. Mixed with a bit of awake time here and there, your baby's sleep follows no fixed plan and no daily structure whatsoever.

Think of your newborn's sleep more like a spiral: an up and down, a constant blend of waking, eating and dozing off again, in whatever order the day happens to bring.

In that first month especially, newborns are often almost impossible to rouse. And once they do open their eyes, they immediately want to eat. Right afterward they slip back into dreamland for anywhere from 30 minutes to three or four hours.

As I said, a newborn cannot follow a structure.

So here's the takeaway: don't set your expectations too high when it comes to a predictable daily routine.

What Does a "Normal" Day With a Newborn Look Like?

It's completely normal for your newborn to be so sleepy in the first three weeks that they mostly wake up only to eat. You may even have to wake them yourself.

Don't worry, though. From week three or four on, babies seem noticeably more awake and alert. Even so, your baby will spread their sleep needs across many small naps throughout the day. Those naps are wonderfully flexible in length, anywhere from 30 minutes to three or four hours. In between, there's plenty of eating. And then it's back to snoozing.

Newborn babies don't follow the tidy day-night structure we'd all love them to have.

Some newborns take this to the extreme and flip day and night entirely. They move their longer awake stretches into the night and doze the whole day away. There are gentle ways to turn this around, even if the adjustment can take a little while. The most important thing is to make sure your baby doesn't sleep longer than two hours at a stretch during the day.

Fussing and Crying Phases

Once your baby (and you) have made it through those first weeks, your little one will get more alert, and unfortunately many babies also start crying more at that point. One to two hours of crying a day in total is not unusual. Some babies spread it across the day, and some save it all up for late afternoon or evening.

(A real challenge for parents and children alike…)

The reasons are all over the map.

The classics: overstimulation, hunger, gas, a full diaper, overtiredness, a tummy ache, or no discernible reason at all.

A great many newborns have a longer fussy stretch in the evening. That's normal too, unfortunately, and I could tell you stories. It usually gets better somewhere around week nine.

So-called colic hopefully disappears around the three-to-four-month mark.

Crying phases can be brutal. As parents, we feel unbelievably helpless, exhausted, disappointed and powerless, because very often none of the tips and tricks help at all. Not tummy massages, not anti-colic drops.

But there's one important thing we parents shouldn't forget:

Crying is your baby's only way to communicate. And your baby isn't crying because you're "bad" parents, or because you feel unsure of yourself. For a baby, the shift from your belly to the actual world is simply enormous, and they need time to process it.

It's Not Your Fault

If you're lying awake wondering what's causing this and whether it's somehow your "fault," try to let yourself off the hook. Self-blame doesn't help either of you. High-crying babies and intense crying phases happen in the "best" families. Recent studies show that nursing animal babies go through similar phases. As hard as it is, and with all the good and bad advice you'll be handed, the best thing really is not to drive yourself crazy (once anything medical has been ruled out, of course).

If it gets to be too much, find someone who can take some of the load off you, and do it soon. My husband and I traded off in situations like that, so one of us could always recover a little and refill the tank.

And the single most important thing in phases like this: never, ever shake your baby. That is the one thing that can cause truly terrible, permanent damage. The crying will have passed in a few weeks.

Did you know that, as a rule, no long-term differences can be found between high-crying babies and other babies? So hang in there. Get help, and take care of yourself as best you can.

Two of my babies cried a great deal. Only someone who has lived through it knows how intense the overwhelm, the frustration and that unbelievable feeling of helplessness and even anger can be. I found the site purplecrying.info genuinely helpful on this.

Extra Challenge: Growth Spurts

As if all of that weren't enough, your little treasure has a whole set of extra challenges to master.

The newborn phase in particular is marked by a string of growth spurts. That means an extra helping of restlessness and, above all, a serious feeding marathon (especially with breastfed babies).

The first growth spurt shows up 7 to 10 days after birth. A short breather, and then more spurts arrive in weeks 2 to 3 and 4 to 6. Basically constant, right? Another growth spurt is penciled in around the three-month mark.

For your child's development, it's extremely important that you respond to their need for food. So you're doing exactly the right thing when you give them just that: food, food and more food.

Overview: Sleep Needs and Sleep Patterns in the First Months

When a newborn sleeps badly, it's well worth looking closely at how much sleep a newborn actually needs.

Every child has their own individual traits and ideas about sleep, that's true. But every sleep expert out there agrees that the sentence parents so often say, "My baby just needs a lot less sleep," is almost never accurate.

For a child to grow up balanced and healthy (and this holds for the years that follow, too), it's much better to adjust a few small screws here and there and look for ways to make more sleep possible.

And that has a big effect on nights as well.

Want an example?

Babies are often kept awake too long during the day and end up permanently overtired. And that has a negative effect on night sleep. Overtiredness is one of the main enemies of good sleep.

The solution? Watch your child closely so you catch their sleepy cues and can respond quickly. A well-rested baby sleeps far better and more calmly at night, and usually longer, too.

So find out how long your baby can stay awake happily and contentedly, observe them closely, and protect good, frequent naps.

Here's an overview of your baby's sleep patterns in the first months, to give you your bearings

(In sleep terms, babies are considered "newborns" up to about month four or five.)

Newborns Up to 3 Months

• After birth, up to 18 hours of sleep. By the end of the first month, around 16 hours (split into 8 to 10 hours at night and 5 to 7 hours during the day, with many interruptions and short awake stretches)
• Second month: about 14 to 16 hours (8.5 to 10 hours at night, 6 to 7 hours during the day)
• Third month: about 14 to 15 hours (on average 10 to 11 hours at night, 4 to 5 hours during the day)
• Night sleep should slowly improve. With a little luck, your baby develops 4- to 5-hour sleep stretches at 6 to 8 weeks.
• Daytime sleep at this age is still completely unstructured. Please don't try to force a fixed plan or set nap times. Enjoy the flexibility instead, and the fact that your newborn can still fall asleep just about anywhere. Above all, make sure they don't get overtired.
• Around 3 months, your baby may develop more regularity and become able to sleep several hours in a row at night (others need considerably longer, so don't panic if yours is one of them). Awake stretches during the day slowly get longer, and the bulk of sleep shifts more into the night.
• It's often typical for a 3-month-old to take one longer nap and scatter a lot of mini-naps across the rest of the day. (A clearly recognizable daily rhythm usually can't be expected before 5 or 6 months, once your baby has settled firmly into three naps.)

Months Four and Five

• About 14 to 15 hours of sleep (11 to 12 hours at night, 3 to 4 hours during the day)
• Number of naps: roughly 3 to 5 (variable)
• From about 4 months, and in some cases not until 6 or 7 months, most babies find a certain rhythm with a consistent number of naps. (This is the point where you can start helping your little one organize their naps and, if you want, lengthen them.)
• If your baby isn't sleeping through the night yet (and yes, apparently such babies do exist), they'll still wake 1 to 3 times a night. Plenty of babies will also signal a need to feed 1 to 2 times a night up to around 9 months. If it's much more often than that, you may be dealing with an issue around sleep habits. Here you'll find more on that and on how to encourage sleeping through the night.
• Around the 4-month mark, your baby goes through an enormous shift in their sleep that's driven by development and by their sleep cycles reorganizing toward adult sleep. This is what people call a sleep regression. It can knock the best sleeper off their feet and lead to much more frequent waking. This particular regression can be pretty rough, and it hits nearly every baby to some degree. Ideally, your baby has mastered the developmental and growth leap, and with it the sleep trouble, after 3 to 6 weeks. If not, it's worth thinking about how you want to handle it. Here you'll find more information and survival tips specifically for the 4-month sleep regression.
• At four months, days are usually still full of variation. Most babies can't yet settle into a fixed daily timetable. Their brains are maturing and running at full speed, and they simply can't stay awake long enough to make it to a scheduled nap time.
• So naps are still very short, frequent and variable, averaging around 4 naps a day. At five months we land at 3 to 4 naps. Most babies have managed to bring their naps down to three for good by 6 or 7 months. That's when a consistent routine and, if you want it, a bit of gentle work on learning to sleep can start to make sense.

So, now you have a lot of information in hand. I hope you manage to set things gently on the right track from the very beginning, so that falling asleep and sleeping through the night never become a permanent problem in your house.

How are things going with your newborn?

Do you have questions or thoughts? I'd love to read your comment below.

Sarah