Despite attempting a bath, quiet read, dark room for final feed routine our 5mo ds has never been in any great routine with sleep, previously sleeping (eventually) at about 10/11pm and then waking 2 or 3 times in the night. He had a cold about 5 weeks ago and he started waking so many times a night I lost count. Then he briefly returned to waking just twice for a few nights. But for the last few weeks it's been a complete nightmare to get him to sleep . . . and KEEP him asleep for more than an hour or so.
He's clearly getting tired (eye rubbing, crankiness and tears) but he fights sleep. Some evenings he'll drift off in my arms after feeding mid evening, but it's like he treats it as a 30 minute power nap, only to bounce back in a completely hyper and manically smiley mood. Loads of smiles, lots of limb thrashing and VERY high pitched chattering. Some of the evenings we've battled to calm him back to sleep until 1.30am. Then he'll still wake 4/5/6 times. He often wakes again 20/30 minutes after falling asleep. Sometimes he'll wake with such a high-pitched cry it's really disturbing. The only reassurance is that he's always really happy in the mornings... which is more than can be said for his sleep deprived parents!
He's doing all the drooling, shoving anything in the mouth worth chewing (inc teething rings) and over the last few days a bit of ear pulling. I've been told these could be signs of teething, but equally could just be stages of development. We've been giving him some teething powder and tried Medised the other night, but nothing makes much difference.
Advice anybody? I'd hand over all my worldly possessions to just be woken twice a night . . . and I NEVER thought I'd say that.