how much "playtime" does a newborn need?

How do you tell how much "playtime" your newborn needs?

Clara is 9 days old. I know that she needs to engage with us by making eye contact and hearing our voices, and with lots of cuddling and so on.

I know that she needs a lot of sleep.

But I don't know how to tell how much playtime is enough and how much is too much.

The last couple of days we've had stuff going on in the household in the afternoon: family visitors and then yesterday we took her for a walk in the park, for 15 minutes, to get a look at the "big wide world". Both days she came home and couldn't sleep for hours. She was reasonably calm while we were holding her, but crying every time we put her down. I figured it might be overstimulation. So today we've had a really quiet day, and she does seem to be going to sleep now, at a time when yesterday she was all upset and cranky.

But the idea of her just waking, nappy change, feeding, and being put to sleep again 10 minutes later all day and night seems wrong to me to. Shouldn't she be spending a bit more time than that interacting with us? I would hate to be boring her by not doing the right thing.

Clara is sleeping in a "co-sleeping cot" by my side of the bed, and one or the other of her parents is there a lot of the time anyway, because we are really tired. So she isn't alone that much of the day or anything. I want to try carrying her in a sling for a while in the daytime, as soon as my C/S wound is healed enough that I can physically handle it.

How much time does your newborn spend sleeping?

How much time does your newborn spend doing anything other than sleeping, feeding, and being dressed/nappy changed/bathed?

Any suggestions would be most welcome. I am really new at this.

When Jack was a newborn (sad he's not anymore). I just kept to his routine. He wouldnt let me put him down much either. Our routine was wake, feed, change, cuddle and sleep. Then in a couple of hours do it all again.

Your bub cant see much and just being awake is stimulating enough I think. Because their hearing noises and feeling new things all the time. Good on you for going for a walk. I didnt bother til ds was about a month old. And congrats on having your bub!! :D

At 9 days old... no play time. AS already said, being awake is enough stimulation. If bub gets over stimulated, it can be hard for them to go to sleep. She wont be interested in toys or anything yet for weeks yet.

Your doing everything right. Sleep, feed, poo, spew and cry is all they do for weeks.

hun Charlotte still sleeps alot and gets unsettled after visitors etc as it is too much for her at times.

Slings are great i was able to use mine at 2 week was less strain on my arms

wanted to say congrats

at this stage dont think they can see that far in front of themselves but it would be good to set up a semi routine i think waiting..... has the right idea thats what we used to do and by putting them down to sleep early helps them learn to do it by themselves,my friends always cuddled her babys to sleep and now she has to do it every time which some ppl dont mind though but i dont need the stress

in the end you do whats right for your family
GL

Congratulations on your beautiful baby. Mine have never been awake for very long..generally a feed, nappy change a couple of intense looks and then out again. I cant recommend wearing a sling enough though..they can get out in the world and still sleep when they need to!

Jo

My 6 week old still only manages about 20 minutes of awake (and not feeding) time in every 3-4 hours. So only about an hour of possible interaction time all day. Although that doesn't count BF'ing, we interact then.

They are all different, but it is not uncommon for babies to sleep most of the day and night. It is also not uncommon for some babes to be awake alot of the time.

At 9 days old, she was hardly every awake unless she was feeding....... sounds perfectly normal to me. I wouldn;t be worrying about her being bored. Not much chance of that just yet, she is just getting used to being in this big wide world!

Best of luck, she'll 'wake up' soon enough! ;)

Sounds very normal to me. I didn't even leave the house for 3 weeks, so bub certainly didn't get much stimulation in those early days! I think just being born is such a massive thing it takes them a few weeks to recover!! At 9 days old I think I barely even saw her with eyes open (lol). You will notice they gradually have more awake time, but won't really be making eye contact for a few weeks. You wont even see a smile (reactionary smile anyway) until about 8 weeks.

The first 6 weeks is the hardest, because you honestly don't get much back from all that hard work (apart from staring at your gorgeous new bubba when sleeping). I didn't even think about a routine until 12 weeks. The first 3 months is just about survival...so do whatever gets you through!

Good luck and congrats on the new bub.

Don't get worried if your bub doesn't have any playtime for the first three or four months! I was so worried that my first son didn't do the "feed play sleep" thing that I thought he might be autistic! Seriously, all the kid did was eat and sleep for the first 12 weeks. People said I was lucky but I was worried. I so rarely bathed him when he was little because he was never awake long enough. He is now a perfectly normal, if not over-verbally developed (nearly) 3 year old who doesn't sleep in enough for my liking LOL!

Remember, newborn babies are still basically feotuses who have left the womb. They are pretty well unformed, from a brain development point of view - they come out so early as a trade off between us walking upright as a species and the fact that if they stayed inside any longer their heads would be too big to get out of us safely.

Hope this helps :)

Thanks very much everyone, this is all reassuring.

We had a quiet day yesterday and a kinda-quiet one today (except for grandpa visiting and the MCHN visiting), and Clara has been more peaceful on both days. Well, maybe she won't be tonight - have to wait and see about that.

In any case, it does seem like doing less with her is a good idea at the moment, so we'll stick to that for now.