Newborn will only sleep in carrier and screams the rest of the day

[ThoughtIKnewBetter]

Hi there,
This is my first time posting on Mumsnet but need a bit of reassurance/help saving my sanity.
My son is almost 7 weeks old and is what we would describe as "colicky". Since about 2 weeks, he's gradually started to cry during more and more of his awake time and is getting harder and harder to get to sleep. When he was brand new we could get him to sleep in all sorts of ways, including a few times without any help from us. Slowly but surely all methods have stopped working until he now will only nap if he is in the baby carrier (we have ergobaby 360). It's not that he likes the carrier, he will scream for a short while each time he's in it until he eventually goes to sleep. Then his naps will last anywhere between 30 minutes and 2.5 hours in there. His wake time seems to be at around 45 minutes, but often he cries during a lot of this too, then if I can't get him asleep before then we go from crying to screaming in the flick of a switch. I mean purple faced, I'm sure he's about to stop breathing, type screaming.
He was sleeping in his crib with a chunk of 3 hours at the beginning of the night, followed by another 2 or 3 hours in there if we were very lucky, then becomes unsettled with lots of grunting and in and out of very light sleep. The past couple of nights this seems to have gotten worse also and I'm terrified that I'll have to start wearing him in the middle of the night soon as the only way to get him to sleep.
I have an older daughter who was also a very unhappy baby but we were able to get her to sleep at least in a couple of different ways and she always slept reasonably well at night (until the 4 month regression but that's a different matter). She didn't start to grow out of her "colicky" phase until she was about 9 months. I thought I knew that it would be hard because we'd already had a hard baby, but this is so physically and emotionally draining, having so much screaming plus having to walk around for the majority of the day, then not being able to sleep much at night either! Plus having a 4 year old to look after, my patience is very thin.
I suppose this is is more of a rant and I know we need to give him time because he's still so tiny but has anyone had a similar experience and if so, did you find a way to end this carrier sleep before it destroyed your back and soul? And did your LO outgrow this fourth trimester phase at the fourth trimester like I have read about?

Hows feeding? Could it be to guess tie so hes not sleeping due to being hungry
Have you looked at the symptoms for silent reflux? Dd had that and was awful for sleeping and slept in the carrier and grunted at night. We were fobbed off for months so if you think it is that then make sure you push for medication
It will get better

And all the usual things of seeing if someone can watch the baby for a few hours so you can rest and sleep.
Does the 4yr old go to school or nursery so you dont have them both all day?

Mine only slept on me for naps or right next to me in bed (we coslept) tbh I think you just do whatever it takes to get some sleep/rest! I found occasionally when I was nursing him to sleep in the day time if I put a thin muslin between us I could occasionally transfer him to a nest of cushions on the floor! But most of the time I just made sure I had drinks and snacks to hand and rested for the length of the nap even if it was hours! That way I got some rest!
It really does get better though. They get better at feeding and filling their bellies and sleeping longer. But the first bit if just a bit shit!

Could it be hunger or another physical discomfort?

My baby required such frequent feeding in the first few weeks. Sometimes I'd have just finished feeding him, exhausted, desperate for sleep and he'd be awake and crying again and I was told he was probably hungry. It was exhausting but I got up and fed him again, and again, and again... I got DO to stay awake and watch him while I lay in bed feeding him so I could fall asleep feeding while DP supervised.

Have you spoken to a professional to see if there's some physical explanation they can find like muscles are uncomfortable from birth or hunger?

Meant DP not DO.
Could you afford a night nanny for one or two nights to take him for a few hours at a time and rock him to sleep for you, do contact naps or hold him while he sleeps so you can get some rest?

I feel like I’m reading someone describe my DS as a newborn. It was utter, utter hell and cost me my mental health. Right down to the screaming in the sling before falling to sleep. People literally couldn’t understand how a baby could seemingly hate so much. I was regularly walking 20K steps a day and, alongside near continuous breastfeeding, my BMI plummeted well into the underweight category. Weeks 5-9 were the worse month or so of my life. The max DS ever slept overnight was 2h stints, always in mine or DHs arms - we took it in turns to sleep.

There was nothing medically wrong with DS I don’t think. He just had good old fashioned colic. He did indeed stop the constant cycle of overtired, overstimulated mess at roughly 13 weeks. I have to say it was a bit of a case of out of the frying pan into the fire though as he was extremely fussy and ‘high needs’ during months 4-6. I could at least breastfeed him to sleep though on a mattress and roll away.

It got better progressively from 6 or 7 months, although there were a lot of bad phases in his first year. He absolutely turned a corner at about 15 months and is now an absolute dream of a toddler who loves his sleep. He’s always been extremely alert and has known exactly what he wants from an incredibly early age. I held a settled 3 month old the other day and I couldn’t believe how ‘babyish’ they seemed! I think he absolutely hated being a baby and as a newborn as he could just never, ever switch off.

I hope it passes speedily for you too

Feeding has been ok from the beginning, EBF and I'm finding it a lot easier than with DD. I guess I'm more tolerant and feeding as much as he wants, it was definitely a shock first time around. He has become fussy at the breast sometimes, but I'm pretty sure that's when he's mega tired and instead of going to sleep like DD did, he does lots of squirming and on again/off again.
DD also had silent reflux and we were given ranitidine, she had these awful spasms with it so the medication at least stopped those. I think he possibly does have reflux but I live it Germany at the moment and the doctor here told me they don't medicate against it, which is a shame.
Don't have any family here so it's just my husband and I battling through. Our 4 year old at least goes to nursery every weekday morning for a few hours so if I'm lucky enough to get him to sleep without using the carrier I can sit with him on me and watch TV or something! Plus DD is getting some proper stimulation and not just a tired mum trying not to snap at all the things a 4 year old does.

It's great to hear from other people who have been in the same boat, even though I already knew I'm not the only one out there. There wouldn't be so many carriers/slings/swings/other gadgets out there if all babies peacefully went to sleep alone and were happy other than bring fed, warm and dry. It doesn't stop me feeling hard done to on those days where I've had really almost no sleep and then he screams at me for the next I don't know how many hours!