Help! Resettling issues

My bub is 3 months old and I've been having a hard time trying to resettle him in the past two weeks. Before, he used to be able to nap for up to 2 hours but now he always wakes up after 40 minutes and I can never resettle him again. I've tried the following with no success:
- going in before he's fully awake and patting, rocking him
- put the dummy in and played a white noise CD
- even picked him up and cuddled him
- left him to cry
- taking him for a walk in the pram
- co-sleeping

Is this a phase they go through or is there something else I should be doing? Putting him in a sling is bad for my back so that's not an option.

Help!

Sorry to say it's not a phase. As they get older they become more aware. They have a 45 minute sleep cycle (suppose to. My bub is more like 30). DS is also very difficult to re settle. What has always worked for me, & alot of my Baby Buddies group, is to roll him onto his side, facing away from you, & gently pat his bottom. Shhhhh him if he's crying loudly. The only problem is that when you go to roll him onto his back he may wake up. It's best to keep him on his side (although you have to stand there holding him for a while) until he is back in a deep sleep then slowly roll him back.

I believe the key is consistency. Whichever way you decide to resettle him, just make it consistent so he knows what is happening. But be persistant too. DS can take up to 15 minutes to re settle. And sometimes I need to re settle 2 or 3 times as he wakes 5 or 10 minutes later.

Keep in mind that as he gets older he won't need as much sleep. I always made sure he got his 2nd sleep cycle, then I wasn't too concerned if he wouldn't re settle after that.

I'm sure you will get much advice on this as there is sooo much you can try. Good luck!

Babies swap and change every single day. Im lucky most days if Mia sleeps 30 mins at a time.. shocked when its an hour or more.

Even tho your bub is awake 40 mins later, hes going to go back to sleep (hopefully) in about an hour and a bit. Motherhood is very challengling, but remember he is still very young.. just take some deep breaths and go with the flow.

Is it because the circumstances in which he went to sleep have now changed?

I am trying really hard to put DD in the cot awake, so that she can resettle herself...it only works about 60% of the time though (through the night strangely and only once or twice in the day).
Hang in there hun. You're doing a great job. My midwife said some wise words to me..."don't chase sleep because you'll never win"...I found that really helpful on the days DD would not go to sleep. Try to be consistent and I'm sure you'll see some improvement.

HTH

My DD was always a catnapper, but as she's got older she's started to have longer naps, now at 8 months old she naps for 1 1/2hrs - 2 hrs at a time. This just happened overnight pretty much and I didn't have to do anything to encourage it, so hang in there, I think it improved because she was burning more energy being more mobile rolling around.
PS. She is breastfed to sleep (well put in her cot awake but dozy) and that doesn't matter she can settle herself through the sleep cycles.