4 month old waking after 30 mins at night and taking 1hr plus to resettle but not overtired?!

[NicolaKF]

Hi folks. First time posting so I hope I’m doing this right, forgive me if not! My LO is 4 months old and has had this problem on and off since she was very little. To give the details, she’s on a 3 nap day, consistently getting 3 hrs-3hrs 30 a day
(1 hr ish in am, 2hrs ish lunch, 30 mins pm with around a 2-2hrs 15 awake window). She’s a sling sleeper (hated the Moses basket) but will do 45 mins for first sleep and 30 mins for last sleep if I BF (EBF) her to sleep on my lap/bed. So I really don’t think she’s overtired from lack of day sleep.

When she wakes up from last nap (5ish) we do bath (as I wondered if bath was over stimulating her, she enjoys a splash) sits in bouncer while we eat, has a little play on floor then after 1.5 hrs awake time has a expressed bottle with dad while I shower. We then do final nappy change with a song, then stories, then after around 2hrs 15 awake time, when she’s eye rubbing I take her to our very dark room with white noise and BF her to sleep (no self settling here! Only way she’ll go off) laying down on our bed - she’s asleep in 10 mins, before shifting her about 2 foot to her next to me cot with no problems. So far so good! But 8/10 times she then wakes up after 30 mins, protest crying quite loud quite quickly and no shushing or patting will calm her. It’s back on boob (comfort sucking, not feeding) but it’s not an easy resettle- we can have up to 2 hrs of her being in light sleep on boob, waking when I gently unlatch her, or falling asleep, being unlatched, then waking after 5ish mins, or staying asleep for 15 ish mins, being transferred to cot then waking within 5 mins of being there. I can repeat either of these steps many many times til between 1-2 hrs later when she stays asleep. It’s like that first sleep is a nap and she’s reset herself!

If this was the end of it I wouldn’t be too het up (although it’s obviously not great!) but with 4 month sleep regression thrown into the mix she’s waking every 1,2 or 3 hours and we can sometimes have this same palaver of resettling inbetween one of those wake up.

Rocking and other getting to sleep methods don’t work and I’m both tired and frustrated.

Reading this back my instinct says she either isn’t tired enough and we need a later bed, or when she does wake after that first ‘nap’ I don’t try so hard to get her back to sleep and keep her in our calm room, maybe reading books to her til she’s looking tired again? Or is that madness?! Or maybe she’s waking because she misses boob being in mouth given that’s how she fell asleep ?

Any thoughts, suggestions or experiences would be very welcome!