Self settled to sleep but wakes periodically shortly after

[Madsta34]

Hi all

My 4 and half month old has started to self settle to sleep at bedtime either us out of the room which is a big win. However, he will often wake 30 mins to one hour after settling and struggle to settle again. We leave him and can take up to half an hour. He then might wake again an hour later and same thing. I will feed around 11.30 and then he’s good until his 3/4am feed. He’s ebf.

Bedtime schedule: bath, feed (10-15 mins. Had another feed one hour before), massage, bed. White noise on and it’s very dark. No dummy.

Bedtime is around 7.15. Falls asleep by 7.30. Last nap ends 4.30- 5. Yesterday he had two short naps in cot (40 mins) and one longer one on me (1hr 45) as last nap.

Let me know your thoughts. Do you think his false starts are developmental or are they because of a chunk in his schedule? Although he can self settle from awake maybe he’s still mastering the next step of putting himself back to sleep after waking. Although he does this well later in the night...

Any advice much appreciated.

That's not much daytime sleep for a 4 month old. You don't want more than 2h awake in one go at this age and depending on nap length then awake time may be much shorter.

As an approximation (just a guide) awake time wants to be double nap length, plus or minus 15 mins.

So following a 40 minute nap, I'd be aiming to start settling for the next nap 65 minutes from waking (so about an hour) with the aim that baby would be back asleep 65-95 minutes from waking from the 40 minute nap.

I suspect the unsettled night sleep is to do with being over tired from the previous day.