I've had good advice on here before and am feeling a bit desperate today so would really appreciate any advice anyone has. A bit long, sorry.
DS slept pretty well, barring terrible wind, until he was 4 months-ish and since then it's been pretty consistently crap with odd brief patches of improvement that never last.
Our main problem is naps I think, in that it's very difficult to get him to sleep for more than 35-40 mins at a time (used to be 45-50). One day last week he had an hour in the morning, two over lunch and half an hour mid-afternoon and slept 730-4 that night (4-6 was pretty shaky, but still), so I'm fairly sure the main thing is that he's chronically overtired. He also seems to be able to stay awake for much less time than other babies his age without getting overtired - the ONLY time he'll sleep more than 40 mins without me patting him back to sleep is if he goes down pretty much 1h50 after waking. I try to get him to sleep at 9, 12ish and then 4ish. Normally I lie in wait at the 40 minute mark and start patting the second he opens his eyes to extend his naps - initially quite successful, this has been getting less and less easy and yesterday didn't work at all. Even with this, he won't sleep more than 2x40mins, so I've been trying to top up his lunchtime nap by feeding him back to sleep (normally he goes to sleep on his own) but this was making him reluctant to sleep in his cot so I stopped. Think he's trying to drop his late afternoon nap, which is fine because even if only 20 mins he won't go down til 730 and since he never wakes up later than 530 I don't think it's enough sleep. Without it, he's always overtired before bedtime and wakes up multiple times (sometimes hourly) before midnight.
Other problems: he's been waking 5 or 530 and only occasionally will be patted back to sleep (for 40 mins, natch). I got blackout blinds a month ago and this helped a bit (it was getting to be before 5), but so far making sure he doesn't nap before 9am hasn't done much. He usually wakes up between 2-5 times before this, so as you can imagine I'm pretty tired.
Rolling: he sleeps on his tummy, but when unsettled compulsively rolls over and won't go to sleep on his back (he can't yet roll back the other way). We used to be able to leave him in his cot at bedtime and he'd coo a bit and go off to sleep in his own time, but now you either have to dash in every 5 minutes or just sit with him. I'm worried not only that this is eroding his ability to self-settle, but that he thinks its a game... It also means that when he wakes up I have to sleep with my arm clamped over his body so he doesn't roll over. The hours from 4ish to 6ish are pretty much always like this, as if I remove my arm he wakes instantly, so again not much sleep. I was considering just leaving him to get on with it (and did so this lunchtime), but can't really face the crying and know it means he'll have a terrible night. On the other hand, he's lying next to me now rubbing his eyes (3 x 35 minute naps today) so it's going to be awful anyway.
I don't really want to do anything involving lots of crying, because I think he basically can self-settle so it would be pointless, and also the main problem is daytime naps anyway so I'd rather fix that but can't see how to do so. I was thinking of feeding-back-to-sleep as my nuclear option (he hasn't fed to sleep since he was 4 weeks old) but it seems like a step backwards and also I'm not convinced it works very well.
Phew, that was long. Would really, really appreciate any advice - I'm at the end of my tether a bit today and have already shouted at him this morning - feel horrible.