The newborn stage is not a sleep problem to solve. It is a season to survive, gently. Here is what is actually going on, and what helps.
In these first months, there is no schedule to find yet, and that is not a problem you need to fix. Your baby will sleep in short stretches around the clock, wake often to feed, and rarely tell day from night at first.
Waking every two to three hours, sometimes more, is exactly what a healthy newborn does. If your baby is feeding, growing, and settling in your arms, sleep is going the way it is supposed to.
A newborn is not born with an internal clock. The rhythm that will one day sort day from night is still forming, and it usually begins to settle somewhere around six to twelve weeks.
Their stomach is tiny, so hunger wakes them frequently, and their sleep is lighter and full of small movements and sounds that can look like waking when they are still asleep. None of this is a habit you have created. It is biology doing precisely what it should.
This is a season for safe sleep, feeding, and getting through the nights together, not for sleep training. Keep your baby on their back on a firm flat surface with nothing loose nearby.
Let daylight and quiet, dim nights gently teach the difference between day and night over time. Trade shifts with a partner or a helper wherever you can, and sleep when your baby sleeps, even when the list of other things calls.
You cannot pour calm into your baby from an empty cup, so protecting your own rest is part of caring for theirs.
A gentle note. This is warm, practical support, not medical care. For anything medical, feeding, weight, illness, or breathing related, please contact your pediatrician. Any sleep training approaches here are offered as choices along a spectrum from gentle to more structured, never as mandates. Your family, your call.