Help! Nearly 6 month old won't settle after early morning feed

[Jemimapuddleduk]

My ds is coming up to 6 months and has never been a great sleeper. He seems to be in a pattern of waking at 3.30am will take a bottle of 7oz and then be wide awake and merrily chat away until he gets fed up and starts screaming. He is on around 30oz of milk a day and 3 small meals. He self settles at bedtime (gos down awake with dummy and Dream sheep). He does the first stretch from 7-3.30 without a murmur! He can sleep through and has done a handful of times. At the moment he tends to end up in bed with me at 5 to try and get us both s couple of hours sleep before his big sister wakes at 7. Any ideas? Is it just a phase? Thanks

How are his daytime naps?

Bump for you

How many naps is he having in the day? Mine both dropped their morning nap at this age and that helped at night. Is he having an early morning nap? Early risers sometimes do that and it can contribute to the continued early wakings.

We are working on daytime naps as they were shocking- 3/4 30 minute cat naps. The last week or so have been as follows:
30 minutes to an hour between 9-10
60 to 90 minutes between 12-2
30 minutes at 4
All in pram (in house) at the moment as will only do 30 min naps in cot!

The naps are good. He might not need the afternoon nap though?

His day looks like this:
3.30 7oz
5 eventually in bed with me- on/off bf snooze till 7
8 porridge
9ish - 30 min nap
10 7oz
11.30 lunch (veg purée and yog)
12ish nap up to 2 hours (often wakes has to be resettled)
2 7oz
4 5oz
4.15- 30 min nap
5 tea- purée fruit and veg
6.15 bath, bottle at 6.30. So tired so rarely takes full bottle (usually manages 5/6oz)

Taking- I am nervous about dropping the afternoon nap as already he is exhausted by 6 and often struggles to finish his bottle as he is so tired!
I know written down his sleep doesn't look too bad but I have been suffering with post natal insomnia so don't get much sleep whilst he is sleeping then once he is in bed with me I struggle to sleep too! I am exhausted.

That is basically a gina ford routine. I think there must be something going awry with calorie intake and naps.
You could post a question on here, the mums are v knowledgable about early morning waking and how to sort it with tweaks.

Oh thank you. I haven't actually been following Gina ford so it's by coincidence! Will have a look at the link.

Yes, I thought it looked very GF. I think the GF people would suggest you cut the afternoon nap to 15 mins with a view to dropping it and make sure the morning nap happens no earlier than 9.30am. They get v scientific about the sleeping although tbh my DC2 wasn't having any of it no matter what I did. That's when I realised routines only work for the babies who are already on board!