How to wake up a sleepy baby

Are you always having a tough time waking your sleepy baby so you could feed him or her ?

If you have a sleepy baby, remember that the most important thing is making sure that he gets enough to eat. Monitor his urine and stool output and his weight gain closely, especially during the first couple of weeks. If he is not gaining weight adequately, consult a lactation professional for advice on how to increase his weight gain.
Supplement if necessary , preferably with your own expressed breast milk. Once he begins gaining weight steadily, you can relax and go to a demand feeding schedule. Soon you will be looking back on these as the ‘good old days’ – “Remember when he used to sleep all the time, and we couldn’t wake him up?”
Let’s talk about a really interesting fact related to sleep patterns in babies. They keep switching between a deep sleep to a light sleep. Look for signs that he is entering a ‘light sleep cycle’. Your efforts to wake him will be more successful if you catch him during the light sleep stage. Signs of light sleep include: rapid eye movements when his eyes are closed, changes in facial expression, involuntary movements of arms, legs, or mouth (sucking motions). You may be unsuccessful at waking him during a deep sleep cycle, but have good results just a few minutes later if you catch him during a light sleep cycle. 
Here are some tips on Here is how to wake up a sleepy baby:

• Loosen  or remove the covering if any .
• Dim the room lights. Since the newborn’s eyes are sensitive to light, if you brighten the light of the room they would end up  keeping their eyes closed to avoid this bright light .
• Talk to your baby and try to keep an eye contact
• Increase stimulation. Rub his back in a circular motion from the shoulder blades down and back up, stroke his scalp in gentle but firm circles, squeeze gently in the cavity between his neck and collarbone. This is effective, but do it gently. Rub his hands or feet by applying pressure with your thumb (your partner can do this while you are nursing to help keep him stimulated), play pat-a-cake, move his arms and legs in a bicycling motion, walk your fingers up his spine ,  or circle his lips with your fingertip. Keep talking to him and trying to establish eye contact.
• Change his diaper and burp him, before offering the other breast. Most newborns hate this, and it may make him mad enough to wake up and nurse.
• Try switching nursing sides as soon as his sucking slows down, even if it has only been a few minutes. Then go back to the other breast and let him fall asleep on that side if he wants to.
• Undress your baby down to his nappy and place him on your chest with as much skin-to-skin contact between you and him as possible.
• Give your baby a warm bath.
• Place your baby on your lap with his legs near your tummy and head on your knees. Gently suport your baby, raise him into a sitting position, like doing a ‘sit-up’. Repeat a few times.
• Wipe his face with a cool, damp cloth.
• Try nursing in the football hold rather than the cradle hold. Babies cuddled in the cradle    hold tend to fall asleep more readily.                                                                                               Foot ball hold : As the name suggests, in this position you tuck your baby under your arm           (on the same side that you’re nursing from) like a football or handbag.                                         Cradle hold : This classic breastfeeding position requires you to cradle your baby’s head with     the crook of your arm. Sit in a chair that has supportive armrests or on a bed with lots of             pillows. Rest your feet on a stool, coffee table, or other raised surface to avoid leaning down     toward your baby.
• Express milk onto his lips or dribble milk into his mouth with a dropper .

Babies can breastfeed even when not fully awake. Once your baby is feeding, some of the ideas above can be used to keep him awake and feeding. In addition, it can help to switch breasts each time your baby slows in his sucking and starts to doze off. Take him off, burp him and wake him again to start on the other side. He can have each side more than once if he stays awake.
It can also be helpful to use breast compressions , ie squeeze your breast while he is sucking at the breast but is not swallowing milk. Breast compressions increase the flow of breastmilk which helps encourage the baby to suck and swallow, and thus get more milk.
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