Help me figure out my sons sleep!!

[charlie13032017]

Right so my little boy is 5 months and used to be an excellent sleeper!
BUT! The last 2/3 weeks he's been waking about 4/5 times a night and been getting up at 5am!
He used to wake up roughly at 6/6:30 which I am completely comfortable with!
He's also breastfed to sleep because if not he screams the house down for hours.
I'm not sure whether I put him to bed to early or whatever but his routine usually is
6/6:30 -wake and feed
8:30/9:00- nap for 30 minutes
10:00- feed
12:00- nap for 30 minutes
12:30 feed
2:30 nap
3:00 feed
4:30 nap
Cluster feed until about 6:00
6:30 bath
7:00 he's asleep
(This was his routine until the past few weeks which now everything has been brought forward an hour other than his bedtime)
His bath used to be at 8 about a month or 2 ago, but he used to fairly grumpy during the day, so I brought it forward and now I think I've brought it tk forward.
I'm FTM so I don't really know, any ideas?
We do think he's teething though if this would have anything to do with it?

waking about 4/5 times a night and been getting up at 5am!

I think this sounds perfectly reasonable for a 4-5 month old baby breastfed to sleep. If you're planning on feeding to sleep long term then have you considered cosleeping with immediate boob access?

If you are hoping to stop breastfeeding to sleep then now would be a good time to introduce ways to settle baby to sleep without feeding.

Your daytime routine looks ok. If it was my baby I'd reduce awake time to 90-120 minutes while naps are short, to get more naps in. So break the day into blocks lasting 2h30m - each of which involve one nap, one feed and one period of awake time. It will probably result in more naps per day.

Usually he'll only wake up twice maybe once a night and be up at 6, which I've been quite used to and I never wake up with a headache lol!
My aim is to breastfeed until a year and he can be given full fat cows milk morning and night; not to keen on extended breastfeeding (not sure why though)

I've tried a dummy but he won't take it at all, I seem to be his only comfort; it doesn't bother me most nights but recently it is tiring. He doesn't need feeding to sleep for naps but he'll only nap in his bouncer, would prefer is basket though!

Do you think he'll need more naps because they're no longer 45 minutes, ever! I was under the impression that babies his age should only have 3-4 naps a day (from my mum anyway)

Sounds like the dreaded 4 month sleep regression to me! Mine also arrived at 5 months after thinking I'd got away with it 🙈 And it lasted a couple of weeks for us x

HT85 Oh I wasn't aware that it could come after, I thought I was a lucky one and got away with it to -.-

Also, about self settling, can you teach this or is this something they develop
A few people have recommended cio and he'll eventually learn. But I'm 100% not doing that, his cry breaks my heart! x

I was under the impression that babies his age should only have 3-4 naps a day (from my mum anyway)

Baby needs as many naps as they need. It's difficult to generalise because one baby might pass through the short nap phase into long naps before they are 1 month and another child could be over 1 year when they reach the same stage.

Your baby happens to be in the short nap phase now, so to avoid being over tired needs more naps. Mine didn't move to 3-nap days until the first 2 of those naps were over 90m each. Before then I would only watch awake time - never more than 2h awake, usually closer to 90m. And that gave me however many naps that gave me.

You will get varying opinions on self settling but I firmly believe it is developmental.

Sarah Ockwell-Smith is my go to on the subject x

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/sarahockwell-smith.com/2014/06/30/self-settling-what-really-happens-when-you-teach-a-baby-to-self-soothe-to-sleep/amp/

Also, about self settling, can you teach this or is this something they develop

There is an important distinction in my mind between self settling and independant settling and parent led settling.

Parent Led Settling - ways to get baby to sleep that can only be done by an adult. Feeding to sleep, cuddling to sleep, rocking to sleep. Things the child cannot do without an adult.

Independant Settling - ways to get baby to sleep that baby can learn to do themself. Dummy, thumb sucking, self-comforting movements (stroking own ear, hair twirling, ankle winding), comforter snuggled. A young (

My DS has just started waking at 5am and I was told by the doctor that early wake ups can be a sign of teething... We are waiting for the top teeth to come through so I have assumed it is that. Is he showing signs of teething?
It does sound like his naps are quite short so even though he is having 4 naps it only totals 2 hours? I try and make sure DS has 4 hours minimum during the day over the course of 3 naps... although I know that is easier said than done! Sometimes he does need a little help in the longer naps to get through the first sleep cycle and into a deeper sleep but once he's through that he's fine.
No idea about the self settling - I gave up giving myself a hard time about him self settling a while ago. He feeds to sleep, cuddles to sleep, falls asleep next to me on the bed, I'm just going with the flow .

I'm in a really similar position and gave been for a while. My DD used to easily go down with a dummy, now seems to need feeding to sleep more often. Dummy sometimes resettles her but usually its boob now. It's soooo tiring isn't it?'