Well this is a bit of a shock to the system.... My first child was a placid little boy who loved his sleep. My newborn just seems to cry all the time. There is nothing like the constant crying of a newborn to drive you a little crazy. I don't think that she is in pain (the cry is different to the one she has when she is in pain and often stops briefly when she is distracted). It is more like she is just plain grumpy. I think that she is having her 6 week growth spurt - so she is often hungry. Maybe there is a problem with my milk - but I don't think that it is likely because I have a copious supply. But she is usually yelling only 10-15 minutes after I have just finished a feed. She can often be distracted for about 10 minutes by a change of scene, some music or a chat with me (but after that short 10 minutes she is yelling again). Any suggestions? Is this likely to be just a phase that she will grow out of? No matter what I do she usually fights sleep until she is overtired - however if I can manage to get her into a deep sleep she will sleep for a good length of time (which is a blessing - especially the 7 hour sleep overnight). Although lately she has been having short 10 minute naps occasionally throughout the day and waking up yelling again. She sometimes sleeps in the car or front pack (which has been really convenient for the Christmas shopping).

It sounds like your daughter could be a high need child. Do you have any of Dr. William Sears's books? He describes these special babies and how to handle them. If you are not opposed to temperorary co-sleeping, that would be an excellent way to get more sleep. High need babies tend to sleep great when next to a warm body and not so great when they're by themselves.

I rarely have a problem with getting the sleep that I need since my daughter sleeps with us. It also makes breastfeeding super easy. And don't worry, there's no problem with your milk. High need babies tend to want to nurse very frequently, love periods of comfort sucking, and don't tend to wean easily.

Do you have a baby sling? That's another excellent way to get things done while giving baby the personal contact that she desires.

HTH.

Here are some things we did with katherine to calm her down during her newborn stage:

warm bath and baby massage
warm up her bed w/ a heating pad for nap time (take the heating pad OUT before you put baby in)
warm up a blanket in the dryer and swaddle her while it's still warm
just lay next to her in bed and cuddle
lay her on our bare chests and rub her back


these helped if she was overstimulated too. sometimes she would just get overwhelmed with it all and so we took her into a dark room and just laid next to her quietly or I would let her breastfeed until she calmed down...

have you tried a pacifier/soother/whatever you call it? We used it with katherine until about 3 months and then she wouldn't take one anymore LOL. some babies need to suck a lot. katherine would want to suck all the time, but i had so much milk she couldn't because she'd get too full, so the pacifier helped with that a lot. now that my milk has regulated it's not so much of a problem

Also if you are breastfeeding, if you are drinking a *lot* of caffeine like from coffee or soda or energy drinks, that may be making her have trouble sleeping too...?

Katherine cries herself to sleep. Period. no if, ands, or buts about it. She will cry whether you are holding her, nursing her, or whether she is in her playpen or crib or anything. So when she is clearly tired (rubbing her eyes etc), we just plop her in the crib, say goodnight, turn off the light and let her cry it out (usually max 15 minutes before she's sound asleep). she hates going to sleep. She also has trouble sleeping with noise because we tend to be a quiet house since she doesn't have siblings etc. If i make too much noise it wakes her up really easily, and then she starts hollering.

As the mother of a 7mo who seems to burst out crying whenever I set her down, I feel your pain, lol. My best solution has been my Mei Tei. Get one of those or a sling or something and wear her. It's comforting for them to be near Mom, but you can still get things around the house done. Good luck!

Something that definetly helped with my daughter was having her in that baby sling when i was doing my chores around the house or just putting on music and dancing and singing to her. She also liked the bouncer at times with the vibrating soother option.

I suggest wearing her! Mine never wanted down and it worked well for us...if it is being just high maintenance that is! otherwise, all really good options above for colicy type stuff!

Thanks for all your advice. Jenna seems to be heaps more settled now at 9 weeks - so we are coping better. So she is not quite as "high need" as she was. Though maybe my son was "high need" too (only I had more time because he was the only one). He has always thrived on social interaction and has not played well by himself until very recently. She is not a placid baby by any means, but we now have longer periods of good humour :D . She is actually much more smiley than my son was at this age. She now settles really well in her bassinet at night (she generally spends about 10 minutes mubbling to herself before settling). But she is still not too good at settling during the day. Usually she sleeps in the bouncer if she is at home and wakes up the instant that she is transferred into the bassinet (she refuses to go to sleep in the bassinet during the day). I am not sure if it is good for her to sleep in the bouncer all the time - but it has been the only thing that works. The also sleeps in the frontpack if I keep moving constantly (really good for supermarket shopping, but not so good at home unless I want to walk round and round the house).