Help! 6 week old sleeps for only few hours aday

[wirebirds82]

Help my 6 week old boy only sleeps for 6-7 hours a day mainly at night and is broken into 1-2 hour stretches. He has colic, so he wants to sleep gets close then wind and bad tummy will wake him up. Could this have anything to do with it? Is this normal? What can i do to help, using infacol but doesnt seem to do anything. Getting increasingly worried with both mine and babies lack of sleep.
Please someone help, thanks x

Hi, hope you're getting some rest when your son sleeps. Get help from fam / friends too if you can.

Our daughter barely napped during the day and had colic. It was pretty awful for 3-4 months but did get better. Infacol is a good start, I also tried raising her mattress to 45 degrees, using lullabies / womb sounds and white noise to help her sleep. Also during the day she would sleep in the pram.

I know it seems like way off but colic does get better.

Have just come through the nightmare that is a colicky baby that can't sleep so I do sympathise, it is hell!

Have you tried swaddling? This really helped my dd and she slept a lot better when swaddled. Also a dummy really helps soothe their tummy pain.

We have been seeing a cranial osteopath every week since 2 weeks old and that has been fabulous. She would sleep so well after seeing her for 3-4 days and then it would wear off.

Am a few weeks ahead of you (my son is 9 weeks) and he was a terible sleeper for the first couple of weeks. Sometimes he was only getting 6-8 hours sleep in 24 hours (so much for newborns sleeping on 16 hours a day). Anyway he has become a much better sleeper for the past month or so. Basically I made made it my number one priority to get him napping during the day.

Try to get him back to sleep an hour and a half after he wakes. Try everything that is suggested. If the usual rocking, bouncing, singing etc doesnt work and the time is ticking on I get him into the pram and go for a walk or get on the bus. These things usually send him off.

I know most people like to bath their babies before bed to help them sleep but I try to squeeze a nap in before the witching hour/cry time of around 6pm, so I give him a bath around 5, this usually send him off to sleep for a couple of hours and then I wake him gently around 8pm to change and feed before bed.

If he wakes early on in a nap dont make eye contact try to quielty rock/shh/burp back to sleep. Quite often it is a fart or a burp than has woken him and he just needs a little comforting before going back to sleep.

I have found that if he isnt asleep by 3 hours after he has woken up then he becomes overtired and it becomes even harder to settle him and he cries a lot more than when he has had slept well during the day.

He also had problems with wind but it seems to have settled somewhat, but he still farts a lot though, especially in the morning and this upsets him. Google some youtube videos about baby massage and try bicycling his legs and gently rubbing his tummy in a clockwise direction. This really settles him now and he likes it. Lots of smiles from him!

Goodluck this is working for me so far, am now waiting for it all to change again though. Am wondering when he will decide naps are no longer needed once again!

Have you ruled out physical causes of the discomfort and poor sleep - prime suspect would be cow's milk protein allergy, especially if he's formula-fed (but can also affect BF babies whose mothers consume dairy). Suspect cow's milk issues if he's sick a lot/ has smelly farts/ constipation or alternatively diarrhea.

Poor you :( been there, it's horrible.