What could it be?

[momma.bear]

My son is 3.5 months old. I'm currently working on extending his naps from 45 minutes to 1.5-2 hours. The past week or so I have been putting him to bed and he has a hard time settling. He'll fall asleep, but about 20-30 minutes in, he'll wake up, clearly looking like he's not happy/comfortable, and cry. As soon as I pick him up, or sometimes even as I'm res-waddling him, he's fast asleep again. But then 5 minutes later the same thing happens. I feed him right before bed, and usually get a burp out of him, so I'm not sure if it's gas that's bugging him. This evening, I got one burp out of him, and then he was off to sleep on his own. But after 20 mins he was crying. This repeated about 5 times and I'd hold him upright thinking he needed to burp but got nothing out of him. Finally I put him in his bouncer to sleep and I haven't heard him since.
Last night, after his 1am feeding, 2 hours later he woke up with a similar thing. I went in and out of his room about 5 times in the span of an hour and a half. Each time he settled almost immediately.
He does have a soother, but often doesn't need it when I go in to resettle him.
Any ideas? I can never get a burp out of him during his night time feedings, so I'm not sure if this is the problem.

[Erin M]

Maybe overtired?  The frequent wakings after bedtime could point to that.  If you're working on extending his nap, you might have some build up of OT -- maybe an earlier BT would help on those nights when naps don't go quite as well.

[momma.bear]

I don't think it's OT because he got more sleep those days because I extended his naps.

[Erin M]

Hmm, can you post your current EASY so we can have a look?

[momma.bear]

Our EASY is different every day, as he is a short napper and some days I'm not able to extend. Yesterday, our EASY went like this:

7am wake up and eat
9-11am sleep (rocked back to sleep twice)
11am eat
1-3pm sleep (rocked back to sleep 4-5 times)
3pm eat
5:30pm eat
6:30pm bath, eat, bed
*he went to sleep independently but woke up probably 5 times in the span of 20 minutes around 7pm so I put him in his bouncer. This kept him sleeping until 11pm where I rocked him back to sleep.
12:45am eat
3:00am eat
6:15 rocked back to sleep
7am wake up

The previous night he only woke up during the night when he needed a feeding. But again, about 30 mins after I put him down for the night he woke up and I could not settle him. Once I put him in his bouncer he was fine for the night. I don't rock it or put it on vibrate at all, it is just the positioning he likes I guess.

[Erin M]

My feeling is that he's still OT from the broken naps - his nap time is long, but if you're rocking him back to sleep a bunch of times during it, it's not quite the same restorative type of sleep -- it's unusual for wakings right after BT like that to be anything but OT. 

Another thought -- since he likes the upright positioning, have you investigated things like reflux that would naturally make him more comfortable that way (not to say that it has to be that, my ds liked sleeping like that for the first few months and didn't have reflux, but thought it was worth a mention).