His naps used to be VERY consistently 3 hours. I mean, to the minute! But, lately he's been VERY tired. I've been thru this before (around 4.5 months), and I believe it's teething. I learned then not to monkey with his sleeping. When he's tired, he needs that sleep. If I wake him early from naps during these phases, he just goes to bed overtired and can take over an hour to fall asleep and then can have frequent night wakings. If I let him get as much sleep as he needs, he goes to sleep fine and sleeps his normal 12 hours. Go figure.
Last night I really watched him when he woke up. It was at 10:30 - the earliest time yet. I shush/patted him in the crib, and he went right back to sleep immediately, but jolted awake. This happened about 3 times, and then I took him out of the crib and held him tight and walked him. He'd arch his back several times, and finally he tooted. So I'm now convinced it's gas that's bothering him. He's been an EXTREMELY gassy baby since birth, but with Gentlease, gripe water, and Mylicon we've mostly gotten it under control. However, I introduced applesauce last week and i think it's making him gassy. I stopped after 3 days b/c I could see it was disagreeing, but we're still dealing with constipation from it.
Anyway, I'm hopeful that in a few more days the gassiness will pass and he'll go back to normal. Other than that waking at 10:30, he slept great until 7:10 this morning. He's fussing pretty hard this morning, so I believe either teeth or gas are making him unhappy. Poor love!
And he goes down for naps and bed with no problem, sleeps through with no intervention at naps. I think he can put himself back to sleep normally, but when that gas starts acting up, he just can't get comfortable and gets irritated with his body arching and jolting in his sleep. I think holding him is the right thing to do. If I don't, it takes it longer for him to get into a deep sleep. I used this method back at 5 months and was worried I'd become a prop. But as soon as we stopped oatmeal and got it out of his system, he went right back to sleeping like normal without needing me as a prop! So I'm not worried about that part at all. He's angel/textbook, so really adaptable.