My almost 6 month old has become a terrible sleeper, at one point was sleeping 10pm-6am but gradually added in wakeup and ended up in our bed earlier and earlier. I'm trying to prepare for going back to work in 2 months where my husband will be doing half the bed times and first half of the night until I get home, so we need some consistency. The problem seems to be waking up and not being able to settle himself, he goes down asleep in his cot for around 2-3 hours, then wakes and is really hard to get back in his cot. I'm trying all the advice on teaching them to self settle, staying with him, patting in the cot etc but unless i get him out and back to sleep he just wakes up. Last night out of curiosity I just sat next to his cot to see how long it would take to get sleepy again or settle and gave up after an hour! No signs of tiredness and it was like rocking him to sleep in the middle of the day! What's the solution?!
Persevering with self soothing doesn't seem to be an option if he is just wide awake, I can rock him back to sleep pretty easily but wakes up after 45mins-1hr, and I can't do this all night, or I bring him in our bed and he sleeps well (no cuddles, oddly can settle himself perfectly just laying next to me with no contact or shushing), but we aren't comfy, and won't really work when I'm back to work.
He has 2 of his naps in the day in the pushchair on the school run, and one at midday in his cot, again settles fine but only sleeps about half an hour although is still tired just can't settle himself back to sleep, so no chance of catching up on sleep during the day
Any help would be appreciated, absolutely clueless about where to go now