12 week old waking repeatedly after bedtime but sleeping longer later

[ThatMellowSloth]

I’m a first time mum and my baby is 12 weeks. From 8 weeks we started implementing a bedtime routine and he would go down at around 7 and stay asleep apart from the occasional stir for the dummy until around 12am for a feed and then a couple of other times during the night. Over the last week or so after I transfer him to the crib he is up within a hour and then continuously after that but not during the night, during the night he will do 3+ hour stretches but it’s that intial bedtime put down he just can’t settle into sleep. he will wake and normally I could settle into the crib but now I have to pick him up feed him and then rock back to sleep again. Also I took one of his arms out of the swaddle a couple of weeks ago and around 5 days ago I took the other arm out too.
His wake window is around 1.5 hours and he has 3 naps during the day. he will normally wake around 8:30am and the first nap will be around 1hr 40 mins the second nap will be around 1hr 30 mins and the last nap is around 45 minutes.
Any advice would be much appreciated.

Yes, this is normal. It’s likely a combination of cluster feeding (even if you aren’t bf, they can still cluster feeding) due to a growth spurt and brain development (usually getting ready at this age to do things like rolling). They wake frequently in the early evening to top up and try to practice the skills their brain is preparing for. You aren’t doing anything wrong. Just roll with it and get lots of sleep the rest of the night.

7pm bedtime at 12 weeks is way too early. Babies that age go to sleep later than that, in my experience.

The 7 pm routine only becomes doable once their sleep cycles mature, around 4-5 months.

What time would you suggest?

My first son at 13 weeks slept 10/11pm -7am which is pretty standard. Anything before that was treated like a nap i.e. sleep for 42 minutes and awake for another 60 minutes.

They're just potatoes at this age, they can just stay with you while you're having a drink, watching a film etc

You're not supposed to put him in another room anyway at this age, I can't imagine wanting to go sleep at 7pm yourself?3

He isn’t in another room yet, he’s still in our room we just have the monitor set up for the first half of the night when we are downstairs, thanks for the help we’ll give this a try.

I think what the previous poster meant is that the advice is not to put them in a different room to you to sleep, this includes in your bedroom with a monitor.

Yes but you are actually meant to be with him in the room. Not put him down and go downstairs and join him later. You are meant to do this until 6 months although for naps I was relaxed about it and I think even for nights i'd leave him for 1-2 hours from 5 months but 3 months is very young. At night they go into a much deeper sleep.

Its not realistic to be with a baby while they sleep all the time. I have 4 children so this wouldnt be possible.

I think many babies that age dont really have a bedtime or a routine. They sometimes sleep well and sometimes wake a lot. I found co-sleeping made things much easier.