Help with 5 month old sleeping pattern

[Babydontsleep]

My baby is 21 weeks and has never been a great sleeper. Just before Christmas he was going 5 hour stertches with his sleep but since then he is barely going 3 hours. He will often settle if brought into bed next to me (which is something I didn't want to do, but I need sleep!) and if not the only thing that will settle is a bf, he will not self settle.

He sleeps slightly better at night if he sleeps well during the day, but his daytime naps are also all over the place. He will go down 2 hours after waking from each nap as he is shattered by this point. if I put him in his cot he will self settle himself down but only for a max of 45 mins. If he sleeps on me he can even go 2 hours + so he has been having his naps on me as he sleeps for longer and needs it.

I am open to any suggestions and totally aware I could've been creating bad habits and that its not a quick fix, I'd just like him to nap longer in his cot and his night time stretches to be a tad longer

What are your babies routines if they are around this age?

PLEASE HELP!!

Have you tried a dummy? It's great for independant sleeping?

It's also useful for sleeps at this age being in something you can move, so that you can lull baby to sleep with movement. I love the bouncy chair for naps when at home. I just sit myself on the sofa, reinserting dummy as needed and keep bouncing with my foot. But a pushchair works in a similar way.

The key then is to make naps frequent. I'd suggest if he appears shattered by 2 hours awake, then awake time wants limiting to 90 minutes at most. At this age I was limiting awake time to about 60 minutes, or 80 minutes if of the previous nap was over an hour.

2 hrs is too long. 1.5 is the max without them getting overtired. No baby should be getting shattered.

A baby's nap cycle is 40 mins. So that bit is normal. The reason he goes longer on you is that he is that he transitions into a second cycle. They rarely do if on their own.

The night time stuff is also fairly normal for a BF baby.

Use a dummy and rocking for daytime naps and try to time them for 1.5 hrs max whether he looks sleepy or not. I guarantee he will be.

Forgot to say , there are loads of free baby schedule apps for your phone which show how long it's been since last nap etc. Keeps you on track as it's easy to forget times.