Why Newborn Sleep Feels So Chaotic at First

One of the most common things I hear from new parents is some version of: "is this normal?" When it comes to newborn sleep, the answer is almost always yes.

Newborns need a lot of sleep, somewhere around 15 to 20 hours in a 24 hour period. But here's the catch: that sleep is broken and unpredictable. In real life, that looks like:

Sleep happening in 2 to 4 hour stretches, not long overnight chunks.

Day and night being mixed up, especially in the first few weeks.

Naps that are often just 20 to 60 minutes, with the occasional longer one thrown in to keep you guessing.

Some days that feel like chaos, even when you're doing everything "right."

The reason for all of this comes down to one thing: circadian rhythm, or the lack of one yet. Circadian rhythm is your body's internal 24 hour clock, the one that regulates sleep and wake patterns in response to light and darkness. Babies aren't born with this rhythm already running. It develops over the first few months, and it happens in stages:

Newborn phase, 0 to 6 weeks: Sleep is erratic with no real distinction between day and night. Naps might be 20 minutes long, and your baby might be wide awake for hours in the middle of the night while sleeping mostly during the day. This is normal, even though it feels brutal.

Emergence, 6 to 12 weeks: The brain's internal clock starts responding to cues from the outside world. Melatonin production increases, which leads to longer stretches of night sleep. This is a great window to start getting natural light exposure during the day, interacting more with your baby while it's light out, and keeping things calm and dim at night.

Consolidation, 3 to 6 months: Naps become more regular, and nighttime sleep gets longer and more consistent. This is generally when families start thinking about sleep training, if that's a path they want to take.

If you're in the newborn phase right now and it feels relentless, that's because it is, for a little while. But it is also temporary, and it is moving toward something more predictable, even if it doesn't feel that way at 3am.

Next in the series: what's actually happening inside your baby's sleep, and why they're so much noisier than you'd expect.

Talk soon,

Jillian