Wardygirl - I think you're in what I call the transition stage and it can be quite frustrating because as you say the early days are quite cruisy - they feed and go to sleep. Now after a feed, they are a bit more alert. I don't know if your little one is the same but he may be in the feed - play - sleep pattern. So basically after a feed he may want to play for a bit. They can't do much at that age - I would just talk to my daughter, sing a song or walk around the house and show her stuff. Then it's really important to start watching him quite closely and learning how to spot his sleepy signs. Basically, he'll become less interested in playing, not be able to hold eye contact and eventually start yawning. The trick is to start putting him to bed when you spot the sleepy signs. As my MCHN explained to me, this stage is all about teaching babies how to sleep because they don't automatically know how to do it. And it's good to do the same thing each time - wrap and give him a cuddle and aim to comfort to the point of him being in a light sleep (but not properly asleep). After a couple of weeks of doing this my daughter would start smiling at me when she saw me getting her wrap out. I also started saying "shhhhh ... sleepy time" to her and now she goes to sleep just with those words.

So basically my advice is to study your son and play with him as much as possible so that you can easily spot his sleepy signs. I swear my four-month-old daughter gets so sick of me playing with her that she virtually takes herself to bed to get a rest from me!

I'd also say don't worry too much about how much sleep he is getting as long as he's not crying. There were quite a few nights when my daughter stayed up until after midnight. She was bright eyed and bushy tailed and was clearly not tired so I didn't stress about it, figuring that she didn't need to sleep just then. Plus there were times when I would desperately try to get her to sleep during the day but sometimes I would just admit defeat if she was obviously not sleepy. It's pretty impossible to get a baby to sleep who is blowing raspberries at you! She's now an excellent sleeper - between 9 and 12 hours every night though her days vary considerably.