5 month old, previously good sleeper, now waking all the time - HELP!

[Peevish]

Please excuse spelling, I'm so tired I can hardly see the screen.

Our five-month-old had been sleeping through the night reasonably well - usually 9 pm through to 6 or 7 am )only very occasional waking) - but suddenly he's waking all the time and seems to be sleeping much more lightly, as he's wriggling and kicking a lot in his sleep. Previously, if he woke, I would feed him back to sleep (he's FF), but now that doesn't seem to make any difference, and he wakes for the day any time after half-past three, despite being fed and cuddled, and having the white noise of a fan in the background.

Any advice? He's been drooling and gnawing for a while, but no sign of teeth, and it's no worse than usual these days. We've started little tastes of pureed vegetables and fruit, but he's taking his usual complement of bottles. He always wears the same thing to bed, a short-sleeved onesie under a summer-tog Grobag, and has always slept in a co-sleep cot beside me.

I feel as if I can't cope, as I'm so tired - he's only a catnapper in the day, and never naps more than 45 minutes, so I can't catch up on sleep then.

Please help - is there anything I should try? Or should I try to think of it as a developmental phase he may pass through and return to being a happier sleeper?

Just read through the above, and wanted to add - he never falls asleep, night or day, left to himself. He doesn't self-settle. DH or I feed him to sleep at bedtime, and for his one reliable nap about two hours after he wakes up in the morning. If I leave him to cry (as I have once or twice recently, at the end of my tether as trying to work from home), he just gets more and more hysterical until I [pick him up.

Could it be 4month sleep regression turning up a bit late? My dd became very much as you discribe when she hit the dreaded regression at 3.5 months. Suddenly would not settle, very clingy, waking all night.

She started getting better as she hit 5 months (so about 6 weeks later), unfortunatly I then went back to work 3 days a week so we are back to constant waking and clingyness. Ho hum...this too will pass :)

I think it's weaning, even though he is taking his normal amount of formula, introducing solids quite often means night wakings. Could you stop the weaning for a couple of weeks and see if he improves?

Thanks, you two. I did wonder about that, HearMyRoar - I will try to be philosophical!

Jilted - do you really think so? I could understand it if he was really weaned, but he's not even having 'meals', however small, on any regular basis - it's just literally occasional little tastes on the tip of a spoon of whatever fruit or vegetables happen to be about. Hmm. Will think more. Thank you.

Could just be that his digestive system can't handle solids yet, however small the quantities.

Sleep in this household went rapidl downhill between 4 and 5 months. We bit the bullet and taught self-settling via a kind of gradual withdrawal at 5.5 months and the random night wakings stopped within a few days. I posted about it the other day on someone else's "my 5mo won't sleep" thread. it was really quite painless, we didn't endure hours of crying at all. Worth a try?

Have you heard of the wonder weeks?
I am on my phone so can't easily do a link but basically there are predictable times when a baby's brain makes a big developmental leap and the baby can get grumpy and sleep can be affected. My 6 month old has just been through a bad time. He wouldn't go to sleep easily, woke up screaming and had nightmares. It all stopped as suddenly as it started about 2 weeks later. He still doesn't settle on his own, but I think that's rare this young. Google the wonder weeks and you'll find more info and a chart showing when these phases are likely. Knowing it's something that will pass has made the hard times better!