Waking a million times a night

[Artechim]

I have a problem with DS's night time sleeps and I am not sure what to do about it. For the first few months he was a good night sleeper (4-8 hours) but would only have about three 20-40 minute naps a day. At 3 months I got him to have longer day sleeps but it seems to have been at the expense of night time sleeping. Now he wakes up 4+ times a night. He was sleeping in a cot and I was bringing him into our bed after the first 2 or 3 wake ups. Then we moved back to NZ so we have been 100% co-sleeping as we haven't got the cot set up again yet.

It seems that he is only half awake, he doesn't open his eyes he just bobs his head around looking for boob and gets louder the longer he is without. I feed him back to sleep so he isn't awake very long. However, three months of waking every 2ish hours is getting a bit old and I would really like to have a longer stretch of sleep.

I have tried patting him but it has no effect, he won't take a dummy. I know he is not hungry because sometimes as soon as the nipple is in his mouth he falls back asleep. I know we have shifted around a bit the last month (back and forward between mum's and the new house) but he was in this pattern well before we moved so I don't think that is the cause.

So besides patting, dummies and leaving him to cry is there anything I can do to try to settle him without resorting to boob? Or do I just have to wait it out?

[KatieRabbit]

My Opinion:
1. If he is still mostly asleep I would be reluctant to pick him up. Therefore settling has to take place in the cot. What I try (and I know you do) is loud shooshing, rhythmical (one a second) patting on the bottom, rubbing in a steady circular motion on bottom (my DD is on her tummy), dummy, singing a song (we have one that I made up that is only for sleep eg "Time to sleep little baby, time to sleep little girl" over and over with patting, and stroking top of head to forehead.
2. If he is really crying then he is not asleep and I would pick him up to comfort/stop the crying and put him straight back down again esp if you know that he is not hungry. Then repeat all of number one!