6 week old won't sleep!!

[Weebleball]

My 6 week old DS is an incredibly wakeful baby, and has outdone himself over the last 2 days. He barely sleeps at all during the day - yesterday he was awake from about 8.30 a.m until noon and then until 7pm. He looked so tired but wasn't really agitated or fussing, just looking around quietly.
He went down at 7pm until 11pm, had a feed, woke again at 2.45am, fed, then wouldn't go back down until 4.45am, then was awake again and up for the day at 5.45am. He has been waking at around this time for about 4 days, regardless of when he wakes up in the night for a feed (he has been ff from 2 weeks).
He is very strong and active, was holding his head up at 2 weeks, and has a lot of energy, but isn't sleeping more than about 10-11 hours a day,which surely isn't enough?
Me and DH are taking feeds in turn but are shattered, and resorting to going to bed at 8pm, but can't go on like this?
He is a very windy baby (trumps) and sometimes seems to be in considerable pain when passing wind - crying a lot, straining etc, I don't know if this has anything to do with sleep?
I know he has fewer night wakings than a lot of babies, but the lack of sleep overall and very early mornings are taking their toll -how can I get him to sleep more - and is it true that sleep begets more sleep? Any ideas greatly appreciated!

mine was on a two hour schedule for a long time, I never intended to be a co sleeper but ended up doing it out of need.

At about 6 weeks is when they are supposed to figure out day from night so you might start seeing a change soon.

It might be worth taking him into the g.p to see if this pain could be colic, or just to put your mind at rest.

Will he fall asleep in a sling or pram?

It sounds like he could be overtired, and the more overtired he is the less he can wind down and sleep. If he'll sleep in the pram/car/sling, then I'd take him out once he's been awake for two hours to try to get him to nap. I had to do this with my ds for a while to get him into a pattern of napping, and once he was better rested we could work on naps at home in a cot.

Thankyou for replying! Malachysmum - Not sure if the pain is colic as it is usually very brief and he doesn't really cry,just strains and gripes a lot, we have started using Infacol but will get him checked out if that doesn't change anything. I am trying to resist co-sleeping really, as our bed is not that big, we are both wriggly sleepers and would be scared of squashing him.
MoonUnit - He is definitely overtired. Car/pram idea is good - just started driving again today after a c-section so will try that, and have been trying walks but he just seems to stare at me the whole time Will try and do a long trek though to see if that helps. Thanks!

My DS was like this at 6 weeks - he changed from sleeping really easily to being awake for hours just like you've described and is also a very alert and quite strong baby. I posted on here and the best advice I got was if he'd been awake for 2 hours he probably needed to sleep. It was quite hard work to get him to sleep but through a combination of rocking, finger sucking and shushing we could normally get him to sleep (though sometimes would have to resettle him). If you watch for yawns and then try it might work. I now find that he gets tired after not much more than an hour. Can't say it's helped get him to sleep in the evenings but he is now at 13 weeks often doing 6-7 hour stretches at night.
I also bought this book which helped a bit with ways to get him to sleep.

Just thought I'd add as the baby bliss book seems hard to get a hold off that it recommends using 5 "s"'s to get babies under 12 weeks to sleep - swaddling, swaying, sucking, shushing and side lying. We couldn't get our DS to take a dummy but sucking our finger made him sleepy, for swaying we found bouncing on a gym ball while holding him worked and was less tiring than standing and jigging him though that works too. White noise for the shushing might help - we recorded ourselves shushing on our baby monitor and played that - again less tiring. We went back to swaddling him at this point after giving up for a week or so and it seemed to help. I didn't really try the side lying but it recommends getting them to sleep in this position but obviously putting them down on back.
Our DS was also very windy and would be straining in his sleep through the night which didn't sound very restful. I found that if I stood up to burp him and really made sure he did burp it seemed to help and he burps a lot easier now.
Don't know if any of this will help but thought I'd pass it on as your situation sounds so like where we were at 6 weeks. I think sleep does beget more sleep and I feel happier when he's slept during the day. Hope it gets better!

Thanks Judys, great advice, will try and hunt that book down, though he's now come down with a cold so things have just got a bit more interesting (!).