My son is 5 months old and a bad sleeper. Although I think he is, I'm not sure. He just seems like it in comparison with the children of my friends, SIL, and NCT group.
As a newborn he went pretty much 2-4 hours at a time, woke for a feed and nappy change and usually settled again after around an hour, then waking for the day around 5.
At around 3 months, his sleep changed and he started going for longer stretches and one night he slept through.
At 4 months, we got the regression and he decided he wasn't sleeping anymore whether night or day! He went for 45 mins at a time and wouldn't go back to sleep. He also wouldn't settle in his crib and would wake up once put down.
We moved him into a cot in his room after moving house and not having the space for a cot in our room at 4.5 months. He seemed to sleep better and moved around a lot, so we think was waking himself up in the crib by moving around so much. He was going for some longer stretches again.
Then it all went backwards again! He's not sleeping properly and seems permanently overtired and grouchy. He rarely naps for longer than 30 mins. Often it's just 10 mins, which is not enough. He'll nap in the car seat, but I rarely drive anywhere. He will nap in the pram but it's not deep sleep as I see him twitching his fingers or he wakes when the pram stops.
He tends to fall asleep after a feed but it doesn't last long.
At night, he will seem so tired but as soon as he goes in the cot, his eyes will spring open or I will hear him through the monitor having a grumble, go in and he's wide awake. He fights sleeping as much as possible and I'm at a loss at to what to do. I'm currently taking the approach to put him in his cot drowsy after a feed, going back in for a head/nose stroke comfort if I hear him grumble, or to pick him up for comfort if he is properly crying. I was previously putting him down asleep but was told that I shouldn't be doing this because he should be learning to self settle. Last night, he went to bed around 6.30 and slept for around 45 mins after a decent feed but then didn't sleep until 10, but then went for 4 hours which was a relief after such disrupted nights recently. He is very inconsistent in that some nights he will wake hourly and some nights, he will wake once or twice.
I'm at a loss really as to what in doing that's making him fight sleep so much. I can see he's tired but it's like he forces his eyes wide open!
I have been reading the threads in here and it seems like the general consensus is that each baby is different and they develop at their own pace and that sleeping is like that. It's just that amongst my peers, he's the only one who sleeps so badly. Some sleep through or wake once for a feed. SIL has one a similar age who is of course, a dream sleeper. She feels hard done by that he wakes at 5 after sleeping from 6/7. 
MIL likes to raise an eyebrow at DS's sleep. As much as I would like to, I can't tell her to bog off, because DH's family are very close.
I'm happy to be told I'm over reacting and that he will do his thing in his own time. I'm just a little worried that he is so inconsistent while other babies of a similar age, aren't. I'm also a bit worried as when he has a couple of bad nights on the trot, I get so tired that I have a few times fallen asleep feeding and woken still in the nursing chair with DS asleep across my lap lying on the nursing pillow and I'm so scared that I'm going to end up hurting him if he either rolled off or rolled further into me or the pillow.
Sorry for an incoherent rambling. If you made it to the end, well done! Does anyone have any thoughts at all? Have I screwed up completely?