5 month old waking every 1-2 hours

[Carlychic]

Hi there,
My baby boy is 5 and a half months old. He is our second child and is having some sleep difficulty. He falls asleep on his own for naps and at bed time 90% of the time. The other 10% we do PU/PD or shh/pat.
He has never been a great sleeper but would sleep a good 6 hour stretch until he was about 3 months old. Since then he began waking several times through out the night, sometimes every hour and some night staying awake for anywhere between and hour to 2 hours. My husband and I are exhausted.
He has a bottle every 4 hours during the day and a dreamfeed around 10pm. Sometimes he wakes before 10 however and I feed him then. We moved him to a four hour schedule when he was 4 and a half months old. We were feeding him only at 7pm before bed and then not again until 1am until about a week ago when we tried the dreamfeed thing. It does not seem to help his NW. He does not seem hungry in the night however. We need to do PU/PD or shh/pat to get him back to sleep. He normally falls back to sleep fairly quickly but does not stay asleep for longer than an hour or so. I normally wait a minute or two before going in to see if he will settle himself back to sleep. Some nights he will settle himself once or twice and I need to go in the other 2-3 times and other nights he does not settle himself at all.
He has a pacifier but isn't over attached to it. He falls asleep most often with out it and is only used to help calm him when he has been up for longer than and hour in the night. He can find his fingers but rarely sucks on them come time to sleep. He is formula fed and has slept in his own room in his own crib since he was 2wks old.
A typical day looks like this:
6:30am wake
7:00am feed 6oz
7:30am activity
8:00am 1-2 tbsp of oatmeal cereal
8:30am nap
10:30am wake
11:00am feed 6oz
11:30am activity
12:30pm nap
2:30pm wake
3:00pm feed 6oz
3:30pm activity
4:30pm catnap
5:15pm wake
5:30pm 2-3 tbsp rice cereal
6:00pm quiet activity
6:30pm bath
6:45pm feed 6oz
7:00pm sleep
10:00pm dreamfeed (he normally only takes 4-5oz)

My daughter who is now two has always been a good sleeper. We haven't done anything different with my son than we did with my daughter. I don't understand why he is waking at night.
Help!!!

[Layla]

Hi there and welcome,

Sorry to hear about all the night wakings. You mentioned he was sleeping longer stretches until 3 months old. Did anything change around that time? Is that when you introduced formula? Oatmeal or rice cereal? If he falls asleep but then wakes soon after that, it sound like he's waking up out of discomfort.

I am also wondering if he is having too much daytime sleep - which can sometimes lead to frequent nightwakings. At 5.5months, most babies can manage 2.5hrs A time and do well on 2x1.5hr naps and a catnap. So you could look at stretching his A time (go slowly and add 10-15 mins every 3-4 days so that he doesn't get overtired) and shorten the am and pm nap to 1.5hrs so that your routine would look something like this:

6.30am - wake
9-10.30 - morning nap
1-2.30 - afternoon nap
5-5.30 - catnap
7.30 - bedtime

What do you think?

[Carlychic]

Hi Layla,
Thanks for your suggestions.
As far as I can remember nothing changed around the 3 month mark. We did not begin to introduce cereal until he was almost 5 months. He doesn't seem to be bothered by it as far as I can tell. He DID begin to roll over around that age however (one way... And has just recently mastered rolling back the other way).
What do you think he might be uncomfortable over? His room is kept at a steady temp (around 23C) and he sleeps in a sleeper and sleep sack blanket.
Extending his A time sounds like a good plan. I will give it a shot and introduce it slowly as recommended. Do you think may need an earlier bedtime (6 or 6:30)? He always seems tired still once up from his catnap (rubbing eyes yawning and a little crankier than usual).

[Layla]

How are you going with increasing those A times?

[Carlychic]

Hi Layla,
Thanks for checking in. It's not going great however. I find he is very tired. He normally starts rubbing his eyes around the 2 hour mark. I find if I don't get him down with in a few minutes of when he begins to rub his eyes he is very hard to settle. Trying to extend A time by even 10 min sometimes results in disaster.
The night wakings seem to be a little more random lately however. Instead of waking every hour he can get through approx. 3 hours now it seems. I'm not really sure why the sudden change? ...although we did drop the dreamfeed all together as I found he wasn't eating as much during the day...
I'm very confused. He just seems so unpredictable...