4 month old waking frequently during first half of the night

Question

I have two questions. Firstly is it true that baby should have the deepest sleep in the first half of night? My 4 month old baby used to have a 4-5 hours sleep after I put her to bed from 6:30pm to around 11:00pm. She seems sleeps better before midnight and then wakes up 2/3 times from midnight to morning. But recently she would wake up crying every 5 min before midnight. Most of the time from 10:30pm, last night from 8:30pm. Every time she wakes up me or my habby goes in to bounce her back to sleep. She will fall back to sleep very quickly(she seems to be very sleepy) but wakes up again in just a short time. We try hold her and rock her after she's asleep and that can only get us for up to 10 minutes sleep. (I rock her and hold her for all her naps, she won't sleep on the bed during the day) She will keep waking up and cry. It feels like something bothering her. I thought it might be teething pain or gas pain or too cold or warm. But after midnight she can sleep for three hours in one go. And a bit more peacefully. Is there any particular cause for baby wakes up only first half of the night?

Some background information, She's having two night feeds at 12:30 and 3:30am. She has three to four naps a day. The naps are from 50min to 2.5hrs. In total she naps for 4-4.5hrs. Her bed time normally around 6:30pm to 6:30am.

Second question is after midnight if she wakes up completly for some reason(I didn't attend to her in time when she wakes up hugry) she won't settle back to sleep for an hour! She will talk to herself or moving around or sucking her feast. If I try bounce her back to sleep she will keep moving and talking. She just won't sleep. If this happens around five it can last for even longer. Is this because she sleeps too much? I tried different bedtime. I found her happily go to bed at 6:30pm. If it's too early or late it takes a lot longer to settle her. Also I found if she wakes up before 6:30 she will look tired and catnapping whole day. I tried to lengthen her waking time during the day(currently around an hour) but she will be shutting and cranky if I don't settle her to sleep.

Please help.

Answer 1

It's pretty normal for a baby to stay awake an hour after waking up completely, really I'm surprised it isn't a little longer. If she does that then what you are doing now is a good method, or you could just let her talk to herself. either way she would probably go back to sleep after.

Now about your first question. I'm going to guess that she is in a different room than you. Make sure the room is well lite with a nightlight or something like that. If she's waking up so frequently while still sleepy she may be having nightmares, also not uncommon, try leaving something in the crib with her. Not anything big but maybe something she familiar with.

Please note that I'm not a parent, but I have taken care of baby's a lot (I've been watching my aunts kids since most of them were born)