Baby won’t sleep? Check for these 5 common problems

When you welcome your little bundle of joy, one of the first things you may notice is that your tiny tot doesn’t exactly sleep through the night. This is simply because your newborn isn’t accustomed to sleeping peacefully for 8 hours straight and training your baby to sleep uninterruptedly for even a small duration of time is easier said than done. Even though you can expect your little one to wake up more frequently, what if he/she seems cranky and exhausted but isn’t able to sleep properly? We are listing down five common problems your wide-eyed newborn is wailing his lungs out but not sleeping.

Remember your baby is still developing a circadian rhythm of its own-- a process which governs the sleep-wake cycle of the body. While it may take more than 12 weeks for your newborn to learn the difference between daytime and nighttime, you can slowly increase the time that your baby stays awake during the day to ensure that he sleeps a little longer at night.

You can also take your baby outdoors for some time to expose him to the natural light, to help reset the sleep cycle.

Since babies have no other means to express themselves, you will have to rely on their wails, shrieks and inability to sleep to decipher what they need. If your little one refuses to sleep, he might be hungry or thirsty. Even if you have fed your baby an hour or two earlier, remember that newborns need to be fed frequently. So, if your baby is not sleeping, check whether he/she needs to be fed again.

may become incredibly fussy and cranky if they overtire themselves during the day. Watch for the cues that your baby is feeling sleepy and try swaddling him to make him feel secure.

Is the temperature too warm or cold for your little one? Is the diaper too tight or wet or dirty? If you cannot figure out why your newborn is not able to sleep, try checking for signs of discomfort.

Yes, sometimes the little one just needs your soothing and reassuring presence to go back to sleep. Cradling, providing skin-to-skin contact against your chest or even cuddling with your little bundle of joy should do the trick in this case.