25 week old fighting sleep for weeks, exhausted!

[hsmama]

My little boy is 25 weeks today, combi fed and up until recently he was an excellent sleeper, ocasionally sleeping 7-7 or with 1-2 wake ups a night.

About four weeks ago this all changed when he had his jabs (delayed) since then he refused to sleep in his cot. He would wake up crying every five mins.
Luckily my other half is home a lot so we have been splitting the night into two five hour blocks, where one of us holds him for five hours and the other sleeps. Unfortunately I’m back at work full time in two weeks so this has to stop.
He has to be in our arms to sleep and he’s always been this way for naps and bedtime.. thankfully it’s improved slightly and he will now go down in the cot for two-three hours at the start of the night before waking up and refusing to go back down.

I’ve tried co sleeping but he hates it as he wants to be in my arms with his head in my inner elbow which obviously isn’t a safe way to co sleep.
We’ve tried food, cutting down and increasing naps but no change.
He’s also been very cranky..

Please help! I’m going insane from the lack of sleep.

What you are doing is unsafe and unsustainable, as you realise, so whether baby likes it or not it has to change. There may be tears.

The first decision to make is if you want to go the route towards cosleeping, which is likely to be less stressful initially but long term more it is dependant on you.

The alternate is cot sleeping. It's independantly of you in the long term, but more stressful short term. It will involve baby crying (probably a lot) initially but at this age it need not involve leaving baby to cry alone, but with you there comforting.

What is baby's daytime routine like, in terms of feeding and sleeping?

Thanks!
He ‘wakes up’ at 7;30-8 and has an 8oz bottle of breast milk.
Has a play then has a breakfast of finger foods and purée at around 10am.
He then has a 30min-1hour nap and has another bottle at 12, another play and then lunch is at 1-2PM.
He then has another nap at around 3PM, usually about an hour.
Another bottle at 4PM, he used to then have another nap around 5-6pm but he’s starting to drop this now, has no other food.
Then we head for bath, massage, music and bottle. All very calm and dark, he then goes in the cot for about 30 mins to an hour before the regular wake ups start..