I was reminded today of this article which talks about, among other things, why it's normal newborn behaviour to sleep more during the day than at night.
A new mother in crisis (her post was titled "I don't think I can cope"), posted on one of the pregnancy and baby websites, saying that her 2 week old baby doesn't sleep at all at night. She is exhausted. She is up all night on her own, feeding bottles, until the baby goes to sleep around 7am. Her newborn then goes to sleep and sleeps for most of the day, according to the description. Her question is "am I asking too much of her, or what?"
Well, yes. When I first read the post I was really sympathetic and congratulated myself on having a baby who did her long sleeps at night from the beginning. Then I read back on the post - the baby sleeps till 2am and is awake on and off till 7am - pretty much the same as C was in the early weeks. I thought it was fantastic that C would sleep from 10 to 2 and then again from 7 to 11 - two four hour blocks of sleep in a night!!
It's all about expectation, isn't it? It's much easier if you just accept matters and go to sleep in the day when your baby does, but many of us have been conditioned by an Irish society that values being a good sleeper above all other qualities in a newborn to think that there's something awry.
Funnily enough, just after I wrote this, the Analytical Armadillo did a new post which puts it all way better than I ever could :)
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