Regrettably that is almost never the situation. Either baby takes forever to fall asleep, or the little one might wake every few hours. Not only will the parents end up fatigued, but the infant will also be drained and irritable.
Many mothers and fathers believe that if their newborns (or small kids for that matter) battle to rest through the night, they just have to put them to bed later. Even though that makes logically sense, it is in fact not the complete truth! Putting your child to bed later can in fact have the opposite effect. If you (as a grown-up) stay awake extremely late, your body will need to compensate for this. A hormone to fight exhaustion will be released and when you at some point want to fall asleep, you will have difficulty, even though you are dead tired! The same goes for babies - trying to keep your baby awake way past his/her bedtime will only result in them battling to go to sleep even more.
It is also in your child’s nature to want to wake up early. Do not forget that the world is a new and exciting place for them to explore and they would want to make the most out of each day! This is just like a grownup exploring a new destination for the first time - will you lie in bed until midday or will you rather wake up even before the sun rises so that you can go explore your exciting environment? Again, babies work in a very comparable way! You can’t force them to wake up later - as they grow older this will gradually happens. until they are adolescents when you will not be able to get them up at all!
It is possible to prevent baby from being overtired at night. Taking short naps throughout the day is very important. Once again, this sounds like it will have the opposite effect, but the better baby rests during the day, the better sleep can be expected at night. This certainly will not be 2 - 3 hour naps each time - a quick powernap of between 35 and 45 minutes is more than adequate. Your child should ideally have 2 - 3 of these powernaps throughout the day.
Children also have internal clocks and it is essential to “program” their clocks correctly. Bear in mind your baby needs routine. Try to schedule the powernaps at the same time each day and put the little one to bed at the same time each night. Do not allow your child to get too tired - this will have the complete opposite effect from what you are trying to achieve.
Try these short powernaps and putting your baby to sleep early for at least 3 or 4 days - you will soon be seeing results!
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