I think I have a permanently overtired baby, help?!

[Naschkatze]

I'm going a little bit insane over DS' sleep and feeling very guilty that my baby often seems tired all day. He is 5 1/2 months old. We had a period of time from about 8/9 weeks where he was sleeping from about 9pm - 2/3am, waking once for a feed (breastfed) and going back down until about 7am. It was bliss! After some advice on this board from @FATEdestiny (shameless name drop ) and others, I felt like I had cracked naps too by not keeping him awake too long.

Then the 4 month sleep regression hit and it all, well, regressed! He now seems to only be able to be awake for an hour at a time in the day (start to see tired signs) but only naps for 30-45 mins and it is hard to get him to go to sleep for those naps, sometimes taking half an hour or more. He wakes 2/3 times in the night, feeds and sometimes will not go back to sleep for an hour or so, happy to play/babble. He is quite often exhausted and ready for bed by 5:30/6pm, which seems very early and doesn't really suit us! Especially as we're weaning soon and I'd like him to be part of our mealtimes.

The nighttime wakings as they are I can cope with (every hour like a few weeks ago, I cannot) but I'm really concerned that he just isn't getting enough sleep because he seems so tired. I'd also like a bit more structure to my day, as it seems lots of babies are having 2/3 longer naps by now. As it is, I'm still always either feeding him or trying to get him to sleep and I can't get anything done plus going a little bit crazy.

So I suppose my main questions are: Should he not be having extended naps by now?
Is there anything I can do to extend them and create something maybe slightly resembling a routine to our day? (I should say, a few weeks ago, he would occasionally have longer naps in his crib and I thought we were on to something!)
I'm hoping that sorting out daytime sleep will also help him sleep better at night. Last night he screamed on and off from 6:30-9pm after I put him to bed and I think it was down to overtiredness.

Sorry for the mega post. Help!

I went exactly the opposite way and made sure from day 1 that anybody could put my D to bed or give her a bottle. I knew she would go to nursery and I wanted to make sure she wouldn't be too distressed.
We had a maternity nurse from birth to 12 weeks, my mum helped, my DH is a really hands-on dad.
She is a very happy little person with a secure attachment to me that her paediatrician remarked on.
And anybody can put her to bed, no issue.

I have no life experience of adoption or foster caring, but have learnt so much from reading the adoption board on mumsnet.

I think it's the idea of consciously and deliberately working on bonding and attachment, rather than "just parenting" the way birth parents can. But without any suggestion that this requires attachment parenting theories.

If anyone has a free couple of hours, this is the single most moving thread I have ever read:

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/mumsnet_classics/922821-drug-dependant-baby-advice-needed

EMIN, the OP, is a foster carer who has since died. She's neither the birth parent nor the forever parent of this tiny baby. But if I could ever be half the parent she is, I would be proud of myself.