Advice please, why is my 5 month old regressing??

[amom526]

My baby is a week shy of 5 months. He has never sttn. Up until recently, a good night was where he would wake up twice after midnight-once to eat, and once usually for his paci or to be re-swaddled (swaddling is a whole different issue). His night feed has been moving later and later, so I thought he was getting ready to sleep through.
The past few nights have gone downhill. He settles fairly quickly for bedtime, but has been up 1 or 2 times before midnight. This leads me to believe that he may be overtired. But then he's also been waking up a bunch of times after midnight. This past night he was up at 11, 130,230, 5 (it's 6 now, and I'm not sure if he's gone back to sleep). I fed him at 130 and at 530-I can't even remember the last time I had to do 2 feedings at night. I just don't know how to tweak his day schedule-does he need more daytime sleep or less? could this be teething? I'm thinking of starting him on oatmeal soon, but don't know if thats a good idea if his sleep is so erratic.

current EASY is 3.5-4 hours. I have trouble keeping him up for the full 2 hours, but I think I put him down too early for naps sometimes. Naps are pretty consistent, but last anywhere from 1-2 hours,  usually 1.5.

yesterday our day looked like this

WU 645
E 730 (he had had is 1 and only night feeding at 415, so he wasnt hungry when he woke up)
S 830-10
E 1045
S 1145-130
E 2
S 345-430
E 6
BD 615

I feel like we might need to make his bedtime later, but he seems so tired around his current bedtime. I usually put him in for naps as soon as I see the first eye rubbing. I just don't know what to do. He has not been hysterical when he NW, usually just loud noises/screeches which then escalate to crying. I just don't know what to do. Any advice?

[Ima shel Alon]

Hi there,
I agree with the early BT. When we changed that to a bit later it made wonders for us and LO slept much better. I think what you should do is feed him at 15:00, that would be 4h from last feed instead of 14:00, then you have your nap that shouldn't be so long (I don't let LO sleep pass 17:30).
Now, I can only tell you from my experience, I know other ladies will say differently. I would then feed at 18:00 (even though only 3h from last feed), then give him some more A time, give him his bath and do BT routine. Give him another feed and then put him in bed. Hopefully he'll be full then to sleep for a few hours, and around 22:00 - 23:30 (as late as possible) feed him again. If he wakes up around this time feed him, if he doesn't him give him a DF.
I am saying that other ladies will say different than me because you are not suppose to DF at that age anymore.
At night time you can feed him if it's every 4h or more. It's not unusual in that age that they still wake up for a feed, despite what you hear. I know one mom in my circle of friends who had her LO STTN in that age.
When you establish the night feeds, when he settles into waking once or twice a night you could try and shift his calories to the day time. You do this by reducing his night feeds by 1oz every three night, but don't forget to increase it during the day. It may well be that his NW are connected to his feeding during the day.

Your naps are looking good to me, anything more than 1.5h is good - take comfort in that.
Let us know how you are doing.

[amom526]

Thank you for your response. I pushed his naps forward a little bit, so he will probably be waking up from his second nap around 3:00 pm, and I will feed him then. I am going to play around with his bedtime and hope it works. He was already down to 4oz at night before this little blip, so hopefully we can get back on track. Thanks!

[Ima shel Alon]

Good luck!