Sleepless nights!

[Lisa78]

HELP! 3 week old son seems to think the appropriate way to behave is to sleep angellically all day long, then scream all night! Its horrendous, he's done it from day one, between 5 and 8pm he starts to cry and he doesn't stop until at least 2am, sometimes later. Then he just feeds and sleeps all day long. We are both feeling really frazzled now. Rang Cry-sis and they recommended a 5 minute deep bath, followed by 5 mins on his tummy on the floor, a tspn of cooled boiled water, then his feed - doesn't work. We've tried driving him around, sitting him by the washing machine (always plenty of washing to do!) the hairdryer, dark, dim light, bright light, silence, noise, constant cuddling, constant feeding, colic drops - though he shows no signs of colic - playing, leaving him to cry, selling him (just kidding) but NOTHING soothes him, he just screams for up to 8 or 9 hours a night - I can't believe he doesn't fall asleep from exhaustion.
Can anyone suggest anything that will help, I would like to spend the odd night in the same bed as DH - one of us has been up with him all night since the day he was born!
HELP!

You poor thing, sounds really difficult. I'm sure you'll get loads of sympathy and advice though. One thing that made a big difference for me is if you are bottle feeding, the Dr Browns bottles. They really seemed to ease his discomfort (my ds2 is 12 weeks now, and believe me, it gets MUCH easier!)
Obviously if you are breast feeding this won't help much though.
Have you read any books for suggestions? Two really popular ones are 'The Contented Little Baby Book' by Gina Ford, and 'Secrets of the baby whisperer' by Tacey Hogg.
Have a flick through them in WHSmiths and see if they are in line with your way of thinking.
Try and get as much help from family in the day if you can so you can rest.
Good luck,
love Elena

TRACEY Hogg even!!!

Lisa78 - This should calm down. Your baby is still V young and hasn't got his rhythym worked out yet.
I'm afraid that my DH and I were still up at night numerous times when ds was 10mths!!! However, he wasn't crying for great lengths of time and I can imagine how stressful that is for you.
Sounds like you've had some good advice though. Goodluck...and always remember that these bad phases pass.... that's what kept me going!

Colic IS screaming, I'm afraid. That's the definition! It does sound awful - poor, poor you. I do suspect it will get better quite soon as he adjusts to being in the world. Have you tried cranial osteopathy. I don't think it did anything for my son, although he really enjoyed it, but others have found it miraculous. Keep posting. And join the sleepless babies thread, you will find lots of moral support and suggestions there.

Lisa, yes, please join a sleepless babies thread - and I know this isn't any use at the moment but please remember that your baby is absolutely tiny atm. It doesn't feel like it, and I posted in despair at about the same age with my baby daughter.

Can you wake him up in the day? He's got his rhythm back to front from being in the womb (mine were both the same) and it will sort but you could help him a bit. HTH and masses of sympathy.

How stupid am I? Didn't even realise there WAS a sleepless babies thread. And see how useful this site is, I was at the slitting my wrists stage when I read your messages and had a vision of lots of tiny babies on the internet, posting messages on the sleepless babies thread, saying how hopeless mum was at getting them off to sleep!

LOL lisa at least you still have a sense of humour.

My DS had exactly the same pattern at this age so I can sympathise. We're sure it was colic. It used to start in the early evening just as we were wanting to eat. We used to take it in turns to eat and go on until about the time you say. I can remember hours of pacing the landing with him. But it definitely improved although I'm not sure that anything we did really helped. So get on those sleeping baby threads and somebody might have a miracle solution.