Awake time at night

Daniel is developing an annoying habit of having awake time at night..

He gets his dream feed, then when he wakes up the next time he has a nice big feed and new nappy etc then finishes off his feed and yawns like crazy but then stays wide eyed and alert and refuses to sleep. The feed etc takes 50 mins then I spend the next hour and 20 minutes trying to get him to sleep. This morning (4:30am) I ended up just letting him cry it out because I was getting quite frustrated

He has quite a lot of awake time during the day and there's nothing "wrong" with him to stop him sleeping other than he's just wide awake.

Any ideas on how I can get him off to sleep faster and stop having awake time at night?

what do you do when he wakes and what time is it.?
do you keep the room dark and quiet and make as little fuss and noise as possible?

i know that when my boys did the 3.30 wake i would just feed, change then straight back into bed awake or not. no chit chat or anything. maybe the dream feed is throwing him out and he thinks it is morning time.

Sams awake time is always between 11PM and 4AM. It varies every night but he is always awake for at least 2-3 hours of this. I have tried everything. I don't talk to him, I keep it quiet, I keep him awake during the day, I let him sleep during the day. I found that you just have to go with it as it's what some babies do.

My plunket nurse said that a lot of babies do this for a few weeks in the beginning.

He is only three weeks old, so you can expect to have some sleepless periods. Comes with the territory.

Heh, I would have said 'all' as well but I softened it to 'lots'.

I don't think it's an annoying habit that you have to break, I think you can do all you can to get him to sleep but at the end of the day newborn babies don't know that they have to go to sleep just because you say so.

so when you finish the feed and nappy change do you put him in his bed and walk away? or what do you do

maybe then you should just leave him in his bed awake and not try and settle him. perhaps this is going to be his way of learing to settle by himself.

I cant add anything to what you are doing, but thought Id let you know im in the same boat and have been here for the whole time James has been home.
We do the same things you are doing and what has been suggested but to no avail.
We let him cry it out, but he gets all worked up and starts gagging. Im off to the doc tomorrow to see what more I can do, and to get help for me as im really really down.

Yeah I know changing his nappy in the beginning is the most ideal but can't help it when he decides to explode straight after he's been fed lol and it's usually a spectacular explosion when he does that.

We have a mobile on his cot but not on the basinette.

If he pooed half an hour after he fell asleep, you wouldn't change him... his outputs will be less regular soon and you'll be able to feed him without changing him. That really wakes up a baby.