How to resettle @ night

[Ilse]

Now my ds is 5.5months and I've been reading on other threads that it is quite common at this age for them to have develpmental night wakings. However, my ds has been doing this for weeks now - at least 4-6 times a night. As soon as I pick him up he goes straight back to sleep. When he wakes he cries and if I let him be he whinges but then strarts really crying and gets quite distressed, at which point I go in. He sleeps on his back and to pat/ssh himit has to be done on his front, which doesn't seem to have the same effect. I'm really at my wits end and have been fighting with dh out of pure frustration. His days look like this:

E - 5:30am (he has his last night feed @ midnight and is bf)
E - 7:30am (only sometimes if he is not too full from the 5:30 feed)
A - 7:45am
S - 9:00am (has reverted back to 45mins was doing 1.5hours)
E - 11am (2 tsp of rice cereal) and bf
A - 11:15am
S - 12:30/1:00pm
E - 3pm
A - 3:15pm
S - 4:30pm
A - 6pm bath time
E - 6:30pm (bf with bottle top up)
A - light activity
S - 7/7:30pm

If you can give me any advice on tweaking my schedule and how to best resettle at night and during the day I would really appreciate it.

[Katet]

I have always done pat/sh on my ds front... either on his chest or nappy area. Although as he has got older, I have found the rythmical sound of me patting the mattress works well too.
Your routine sounds fine to me & given he settles as soon as you pick him up, I am wondering how you settle him for sleeps & how he goes to sleep at the beginning of a nap/night. that may be the cause.

[Ilse]

To settle him before sleep I take him into his room, close the curtains etc then sit quietly with him. Up until a couple of weeks ago, I use to be able to simply put him in his cot awake and he would 'talk' himself to sleep. Nowadays, he falls asleep kicking and crying in my arms and when I am pup/pdown quite a few times before he finally goes off.

His settling down time I do think needs improvement. Funnily enough tonight, I put him down awake and he babbled for awhile and then started crying. I went in and did pup/pdown and he fell asleep on his own, and has been sleeping for 1.5hours so far, he usually wakes up after half and hour crying. He is usually good up until midnight, I can hear him resettling but after that all hell breaks loose :!: I have taken to taking him into my bed at about 4am after being too exhausted and am wondering if he has gotten clever enough that wakes until I do this :?:

[Katet]

I don't think it is him waking to be brought into your ... tobed be honest I don't think babies & toddlers even at age 2 think If I do this Mummy will do that.
I think the fact you say he is pretty much falling asleep in your arms is the key to me. You need to put him down in the cot sooner doing pu/pd so he learns the cot is where he falls asleep... as he falls asleep in your arms he expects to be there in a light sleep stage & when he isn't he goes "hey where am I & is confused & wakes up crying"
Also at this age moving around is very common & it takes a bit of help getting them to learn to go to sleep with the movement & tingly muscles from awake activity
Also if he is wakign 1/2 hour after bedtime, from my experience with ds#1 (had every problem in the book) his bedtime needs to be earlier... he is going to bed over tired. Which may also contribute to the night wakings
HTH