I've been trying to read some other threads because I know this time comes with lots of issues. My little guy sleeps great from 7:30pm-3am generally. We have just done one night feed around 3 or 4 am since he was 3 months old. He has almost always done what I call the wake-and-wiggle at 4, 5 and 6 am, then waking up at 7am. I used to just ignore it and he would make a few noises and fall back asleep.
Now he wakes up completely every time. My husband or I has to get up, give him the paci, pat his belly, etc. We try to wait one minute to see if he'll wind down again, but he just wakes himself up more and screams and makes it tougher for us. He does not fall asleep at BT or after feed with paci but uses it for naps and won't fall asleep these times without it.
He is a short, poor napper--often does just 3 thirty minute naps a day. So he's super tired at night. I think he would go to bed at 6 some days if we let him, but when I let bedtime creep up to 6:45pm, his wake up time (where he is too happy and energetic to convince him to sleep, even with paci) moved up to 5:30am. Now we push him to 7:30pm and his wake up time is 6:15 or so.
I can handle getting up at 6:15, but NOT if I also wake up at 3, 4, 5, and 5:30. A few nights last week it was every 15 minutes! What to do? He was teething 2 weeks ago but the bottom 2 popped and he seems to be in less pain over it.
My husband seems to think we just suck it up and go sleepless until something changes. I disagree.