0-8 Weeks

Total Sleep Hours: 16-18
Night time Hours: 8-9
Daytime Hours: 7-9 (typically 3-5 naps per day)

First of all…ENJOY YOUR BABY!!! During these early weeks you can’t spoil him or create bad habits. Now is the time when you can snuggle him, hold him as much as your heart desires, let him sleep on the go and allow him to sleep with light and noise all around him.
Always put your baby on her back to sleep and make sure there are no fluffy blankets, pillows or stuffed animals in her crib.
If you’ve tried to create a routine, you probably learned pretty quickly that worrying about keeping your baby on a specific schedule at this young age is futile. Biological sleep rhythms and circadian rhythms don’t even exist!
Day/night confusion is very common.
Before 8 weeks, it’s all about soothing your baby and doing whatever you can to get him to sleep and to avoid the overtired state.
Do all that you can to get your baby to sleep – wearing her in a carrier, nursing, bouncing, rocking – the goal is to keep her from becoming overtired.
Most become overtired quickly and need no more than 45min.-1 hour of wake-time in between naps.
Close to 8 weeks, watch for signs of sleepiness (rubbing eyes, pulling at ears, yawning, staring, fussiness) but understand that with a lot of babies they’re already overtired at this point and we’ve missed the window of opportunity. Try to begin the soothing process before he starts showing these signs.
At this age, most babies need to eat at least 2 times throughout the night. Be consistent with the amount of feeds during the day and make sure there are less than 4 hours between feedings. Cluster feeding in the early evening may help her have longer stretches through the night.
At 8 weeks it’s very important to begin establishing a healthy foundation for sleep. Even though they still aren’t ready to “sleep train” or to be on a predictable schedule, there are still areas that you can control like sleep environment, avoiding the overtired state, etc. (see 8-12 weeks)