Make sure your newborn is exposed to daylight and activity from the same time each morning when you're in a sleep emergency
These newborn sleep pages are intended to get you started in the first challenging few weeks of life. But this sleep work will be most useful in your family's life if you quickly move on to the comprehensive Possums Baby Sleep Program, starting with The essentials, here!
When you find yourself in a newborn sleep emergency, it’s important that your little person starts each day at the same time. This is how you re-set his body clock. Choose the very earliest possible wake-up time that you and your family can stick with consistently over the weeks ahead!
You don’t need to actively wake your tiny newborn child. Just open the curtains or blinds and bring your baby into the noise, activity and light or sunlight of a new day, at the same time each morning. Gently try to engage your little one in the amazing world around her.
If you’ve been sleeping in very late with your newborn because you’re coping as best you can and catching up on sleep, you might bring your child’s get-up time earlier only gradually, perhaps by 15 minutes a day, until you reach your chosen get-up time. It's hard, doing the transition, but definitely worth it in the end.
You’ll probably have lots of questions about this. You can find out more about the challenges of starting the day at the same time here.
But right now, if you have someone else who can take your baby to start the day at the same time each morning (usually after your little one has had a a feed) so that you can go back to sleep, that would be wonderful!
Recommended resources
The body clock: baby sleep regulator #1
Sleep pressure: baby sleep regulator #2
How to change #1 cause of newborn sleep problems: hunger
How to change #2 cause of newborn sleep problems: body clock not in sync with yours yet
Are you in a sleep emergency and lying awake even when your newborn is asleep?