Why is baby struggling with naps all of a sudden? please see routine

[PreemieBlessing]

I have had my baby (7months old, 6 weeks premature) in a routine now for 2 weeks, he was doing really well until the last 4 days, I feel like we have taken a step back.

Could anyone please point out what I might be doin wrong with this:

6.30/7am wake up

7.30: Bottle

8:15 Breakfast

9am: Nap for an hour

10-10:15am mid morning snack

11:45am: Lunch

12pm: Afternoon nap (he was able to do 2.5 hours 5 days into the new routine but he has now started taking 45 mins, waking and just not settling to the next cycle)

14:30: Bottle

3:45pm: catnap (which he is really resisting)

18:00: Dinner

19:00: Bathtime book and bottle

19:40: tends to fall asleep

22:45: dreamfeed

While we were sleep training him, he was getting up several times and resettling himself and Id have to wake him at 7am. Then he started really sleeping right through and was getting up at 6:15am. Now for the last two days he's been getting up in middle of the night and settling after half hour which is making his morning wakeup inconsistent.

I am trying to stick to the nap times so his body gets used to this routine however I don't know why the lunch nap has gone awol!

Any ideas/help on this?

Half an hour awake in the night is neither here nor there at this age and really shouldn't affect anything very much.

The simplest answers are often overlooked - if this is a sudden and unexplainable change, could he be poorly?

Also - 12pm-3pm is often the hottest point of the day. Are you amending his bedding accordingly?

While self-settling is great, one of the massive drawbacks is that when little one does wake before you want them to, you have no established technique to get him back to sleep.

Thank you for your reply, he is on a cotton sheet and wearing a shirt grower and no blanket.
Self settling is tricky yes, it worked for the first week but now its a different story. Incidentally he had a catnap (I say catnap but it turned out to be a long nap) at 15:45, fell asleep in 15mins and I had to wake him at 17:00 so it doesn't disrupt bedtime.

I feel like its something to do with the timing of wake up and the interval from the morning nap timing and the afternoon nap.

What do you think?

I think your over thinking the whole 24hrs routine to rigidly. Stick to a bedtime routine and let the day time routine relax a bit. I'm a big believer in routine but I find a firm bedtime routine makes the day times easier. Ds has a sort of day routine as in he does simular things each day but I'm not to a specific time or daytime nap time. I certainly wouldn't be waking him in the morning (unless you need to get him up so you can go to work)

Apologies for derailing but what mKes it hars for them to self-settle after the sleep training process has kicked in?

I've just started this & DD is doing a solid 6.30pm-6.15am now, so I'm worried that if she starts waking earlier she won't go back to sleep on her own. Is there a different process to teach this?

have you tried pushing the lunchtime nap back a little (say 1pm with a hopeful wake up of 3?) If he wakes at 10am he might just not be that tired at 12 as that's only 2 hrs. ( a lot of people say that they are most tired when they first wake up in morn so first nap should be no more than 2 hrs later but then next nap can be 3hrs after first nap wake up)

when he then drops morning nap when he's older you can move lunch nap forward again.

Just glancing at this I'd say push his afternoon nap back a little as maybe he is just not as tired at 12pm. As they get older they tend to vary the times they need to sleep during the day. Be guided by his visual clues like crying/ complaining, rubbing eyes etc rather than sticking to a nap by the clock routine.

Also his afternoon nap seems very close to lunch time - he might just be uncomfortable being put down so soon after a meal?

I'd suggest dropping the cat nap and going for two sleeps a day on a 234 system ie nap 2h after waking; next nap 3h after waking then bed 4h after waking. mine had dropped the third nap by this age
Hth