Can your newborn have too much sleep?
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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!
It's possible for a newborn to be too sleepy.
The first few weeks of life are a time of particular vulnerability as your little one adapts to life outside the womb. If a tiny baby isn't taking in enough calories in the first sensitive few weeks of life, he might become drowsier than he would otherwise be. Babies quite normally sleep a lot in the first week or two of life, anyway. But taking too much sleep might occur if your newborn is jaundiced. The jaundice can be a sign that there isn’t enough milk passing through baby’s gut.
Sleepiness then dominates over the newborn's developing body clock and sleep pressure. (In other newborns, not enough milk might result in crying and fussing, instead of sleepiness.)
A newborn who isn’t getting enough calories might wake up less and less often to feed. Less feeds make her even sleepier. This cycle of not enough milk and poor weight gain is often - though not always - combined with jaundice, and is a serious medical situation. It's one reason why some new parents are advised to wake their newborn every three hours to feed, for a time.
You can see why it’s important to have your baby checked over by a doctor or midwife or other properly qualified health professional if you are worried that your newborn is sleeping too much. Jaundice requires monitoring by your doctor or midwife.
There are lots of things your health professionals will recommend to quickly break the cycle of not enough milk and drowsiness in a newborn. Despite how stressful this situation is, it’s important to never force a baby’s feeds. Pressuring a little one to feed can accidentally result in a conditioned dialling up with the breast or bottle.
Having said all that, it’s also normal for babies to sleep a surprising amount in the first two weeks of their life. Newborn sleep needs are highly variable, like baby sleep needs generally. Some newborns need only nine hours of sleep in a 24 hour period, and develop normally – though these little ones may always be low sleep need, which does come with its own challenges!
You’ll notice that from about ay 14 after the birth, your little one becomes much more alert, sleeping less and starting to need much richer sensory experiences to stay dialled down.
I have often seen parents over the years who describe the shock they felt when they discovered that their placid newborn, who was sleeping so well, wasn’t gaining weight adequately. Although these parents skilfully turned the situation around with the help of their health professionals, it’s quite normal for the mother or parents to find their minds worrying about the baby’s weight gain from then on, right throughout the first year of life. This worry can place an enormous stress on families.
When babies are out of the newborn period, not enough milk typically results in crying and fussing, not in sleepiness – once they are outside the newborn period, they will almost always let you know they are hungry by dialling up, rather than go to sleep! This can be reassuring to remember.
It's also another reason why it helps everything go well, whether breastfeeding or bottle feeding, if you offer frequent, flexible feeds. You might like to read more information about baby weight gain worries in my book, The discontented little baby book, which I also hope will help you feel empowered and reassured.
It's no surprise if your mind continues to tell you that you've somehow failed when your newborn has weight gain problems, even though you were obviously trying your absolute best to do everything right. Unexpected problems arise in life and in babies despite our best efforts; so much is outside our control actually. But the human mind can seem like a problem-solving machine, forever trying to figure things out and telling us outrageously unhelpful things in times of stress. It helps to notice when this is happening, without feeling we have to act upon the unhelpful things our mind tells us!
Instead, I suggest practicing some simple self-compassion strategies, which I find tremendously powerful when I remember to use them for myself.
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
Three things to know about your brain's thinking processes after you've had a baby
