Why does he wake up?

[Bumbler16]

My lo is 7 weeks old and I'm having trouble getting him to sleep in the day which then makes for very long and sometimes upset evenings.

It's so strange .. He'll drift off by himself no problem, wherever he is (cot, on me, chair etc) but then minutes later he just opens his eyes again and is back to being wide awake.

Yesterday he was awake pretty much from 3pm until half 10! The longest he slept for was about 20 minutes but maybe 8 or 9 other times he dosed off, sometimes for as long as 10 minutes but then he just wakes up again. Not crying or fussing or upset but he's awake, with very red and tired eyes.
I just can't work out what would make him wake like that?

We were upstairs by ourselves pretty much the whole time so nothing disturbed him, if we'd been out he provably wouldn't have slept at all. Today when we were out I rocked him to sleep and he woke up again 4 times in 45 minutes.

He really isn't getting enough sleep I don't think and it can make him unsettled then late in the evening.

Any advice gratefully received!!

Thanks so much

Just to say once he does go off at night he does sleep well. Mostly 3 hours between feeds, sometimes more.

Bump

Do you swaddle him? I found that made a huge difference for my baby as he didn't startle himself awake so often

If you google "the fourth trimester" you'll see the theory that babies pretty much still think they're part of you for the first 3 months so they prefer sleeping in contact with you and like gentle motion just like in the womb.

Slings and swaddles are your friend!

Baby should sleep downstairs (assuming that's where you'll be) until you go to bed.

I'd suggest a bouncy chair for napping.

Startle reflex? My 12 week is just about growing out of it now, swaddling is supposed to help but DD loved to suck her hand so that didn't work for us. I just held her to help her get back to sleep again, but not finding any huge problems putting her down now.