Rock Bottom?

There have been quite a few times where I think, "It can't get any worse, can it?" and it does. DD got overtired yesterday (only good sleep she got was about 1 1/2 hours in my arms at a friend's house...otherwise she slept while in the car, but then woke up within about 15 minutes of the car stopping moving). By evening she was a wreck. She was screaming like she was in some major pain. We tried gas drops. Who knows if they did anything. We tried walking, dancing, swaying, swaddling...everything we could possibly think of. I told DH that at least we knew she'd sleep eventually in the car. After awhile of the screaming, he looked at me and said, "Let's go for a ride". We got loaded up and he just started driving. From the second we were in the car, DD was totally calm. She finally fell asleep after about 10 minutes of driving. We continued to drive for about 30 minutes, then came home. We knew she'd wake up once we got inside, but neither DH nor I were really in any condition to be driving (we'd all been up since about 5 a.m.).

True to form, after about 15 minutes, she woke up unhappy. I decided to try feeding her again. She took right to it (as she typically does) and ate for awhile and then fell asleep while nursing. She had done that earlier in the evening, but woke up when we tried to move her. This time, however, she stayed mostly calm as I burped her. She cried some, but not nearly as badly. She finally fell asleep on my chest and there was no way DH or I were going to move her. We both must have fallen asleep sometime soon after. I woke up intermittently, but didn't really note the time as I did. Eventually, however, I woke up. It was 3 a.m. We'd all been sleeping for about five hours. I was shocked. I was leaking buckets of milk, but oh well! DD was starting to wake up, so we let her wake on her own. I fed her, DH changed, swaddled, and burped her, then he put her to bed. Typically when she sleeps for awhile (longer than 3 or 3 1/2 hours) we get a fight (or at least a lot of awake time), but not this time. She went right down and we didn't hear a peep for another 2 1/2 hours. Wow.

While she was screaming, I figured this had to be the worst it could get, but looking back, it could have been worse (really, it could always be worse). She could have fought sleep for even longer. Or woken up after only an hour or two. Or wanted to be awake after her 3 a.m. feeding. I'm hoping, though, that this was the worst it will get. They say the fussiness typically peaks around 6 weeks. Hopefully she's just a bit ahead of schedule (today is 5w2d). :) I don't know how much more of that sort of screaming my heart can take. It hurts both me and her daddy.