20 week old won't settle bedtime

[Jpbaby]

Hi! It's been 3 nights in a row now that my 20 week old goes down to sleep after our regular bedtime routine and wakes 20 minutes after falling asleep and won't settle back, the usual pat in the back that has worked wonders since birth is no longer helping him at this time of the day. PU/PD seems to make it worse. He is not hungry, he is clearly tired and ready for bed. Not sure what to do or how to help him, nothing I do works. Please help!

[LaraAndrea]

Could you post your daily EASY routine and we can take a look.

[Jpbaby]

Hello and thank you for getting back to me! Our routine is kind of all over the place right now since we moved last Sunday, so there is a lot of adjustment going on. I feel that he is also overtired, teething and not quite sure but perhaps going through a growth spurt or something as he's been asking to be breastfed more often.
Our day yesterday went something like this:

E 7:30 am
A 8:00 am
S 9:05 am for 1 hour and 20 minutes

E 10:25am we fell asleep while feeding woke up again at 11:55
A 11:55 am
S 1:06 pm for 50 minutes

E 2:05 pm
A 2:30 pm
S 4:05 pm for 45 minutes

E 5:05 pm one side
A 5:20pm bath
E 6:00 pm other side
A swaddle and a song
S 6:15 pm for 20 minutes

Then he woke up and started crying, wouldn't settle back. I tried shush/pat several times, gave him gas drops, held him and re swaddled him, left the room for 10 minutes and let him cry because I was getting frustrated, came back to more patting, nothing. Dad came and took over took him out of the crib gave him a brake to calm down, re swaddled and more patting, nothing. Kept crying. I ended up in bed with him on my chest patting his back to sleep, finally went down  past 8 pm. It's the third night in a row that this happens. First night I also ended up patting him on my chest after trying a lot of patting on the crib as well as pu/pd. Second night fell asleep after 2 hours of crying, i tried everything again shush/pat, medicine in case of gas, breastfeeding, nothing. Also left the room out of frustration for a 5 minute breather came back replaced the paci and he fell asleep.

Last night though has been the most challenging since birth. This boy is my third child and he's been on EASY since birth, has always slept independently and when I nurse him in bed I always put him back in his crib. But last night I dreamfed him at 10:45 pm and went down. Woke up around midnight crying wouldnt settle with just the paci, so dad brought him to bed with us and I was so tired I fed him to sleep, we ended up sleeping together. I woke up around 3 to put him back in his crib, he wouldn't take none of that, cried again, he seemed distressed I thought he was in pain, lots of gas and farts. Gave him some drops resettled him and tried to sleep him on my chest again, he slept for like an hour but wouldn't let me put him in the bed next to me, nursed him again around 4 am slept next to me but barely, woke up again around 6:30 wanting to nurse again. And he was up for the day.
I noticed that he's starting to roll over and when a lay him in bed that's what he tries to do right away, which causes his swaddle to break.  Not sure if I should stop swaddling because he's so tired it just seems like the worst idea at the moment.
Please give me some advice as to how to break this OT cycle. I don't want to have another night like last night, and for sure don't want to start some accidental parenting right now.
He used to be on a consistent 3.5 - 4 hour EASY before moving.
Thanks!

[LaraAndrea]

Hugs, there is nothing worse than bad nights! Moving is hard on everybody too!!

Working on improving daytime naps may help with OT nights.

An ideal state at this age would be 4h EASY with 2 naps ~90 min and 1 45 min cat nap. Naps below 90 mins are not always restorative, so even though you are getting a decent amount of total daytime sleep it is possible your LO is still OT for bed (just as you have discovered)

I would start by increasing that first AT avg AT for a 5 month old is 2-2.5h and up to 3 as you approach 6 months. Often UT naps start the OT cycle. Hopefully, with a good first nap LO won't fall asleep nursing which sorta throws off the rest of the routine.

Until nights improve you may find pushing that AT hard with a few OT wakes, often they can be resettled for a longer nap.

In the meantime if LO does fall asleep nursing maybe cap how long he sleeps, no longer than 2h total (including time of preceding nap) it looks like you are caught in UT/OT loop