5 months boy, wakes every hour at night, restless legs on trying to go to sleep

Hi,

I was so excited to find this website. maybe someone can help me with my 5 month old baby!

The current situation is that he wakes every hour all night long. some nights he is awake for 2 hours from 4am-6am (if i dont nurse him back to sleep but just rock him he wakes up and plays). if there is any longer stint it is after 6am and only if in bed with me. last night after a chiropractor appointment there was finally some improvement. he slept 3-3.5 hours the first stint...then reverted to up every hour after 11pm but didnt need to nurse each time would go back to sleep easily with ricking. Also may have done a longer stint after 6am but I was too tired to notice how long it had been.

The history:

he has always slept on his tummy. when asleep he is very still. He has NEVER gone to sleep by himself, even as a newborn. my other kids would doze off etc but not this one. he always has to be rocked or patted/jiggled on the bottom to get him to sleep. I default to wearing him in the front pack to get him to sleep. I call it the sleep inducer, because he is always asleep in moments in it and now if held in arms in a similar position will settle and go to sleep fairly well. until 3 months old that is the only place he would nap. after that i could put him to sleep in there and then lay him down and he would nap 2-3 hours, 3 times a day. he has always napped better than sleeping at night.

Until about 12 weeks old he would sleep 3 or 4 hours the first stint at night, then 2 or 3 hours at a time after that. after 15 weeks he dropped the longer stint and would wake every hours like clockwork from 9pm to 8am-ish. During the day he is happy and content and gives no sign of being gassy or in discomfort.

breastfed baby. I have noticed that if i consume dairy it tends to give him a mucus-y diaper and often to skip a day (other wise he is a regular daily pooper). i have gone off dairy on 2 separate occasions for 2 weeks with no noticeable improvement in his sleeping. the only other food issues i have noted are that he gets gassy and unhappy if i eat sandwich ham and possibly other cooked pork meals...but bacon seems to be fine. I have always known if i eat something that bothers him because he wont go to sleep until very late. will be perfectly content but will not sleep, even though obviously tired.

we started him on solids about 2 weeks ago. he then didnt dirty a diaper for 6 days but when he finally did the poop was fairly normal for beginning to wean, not solid or anything. the solid weaning foods didnt effect his sleeping. he still woke every 2 hours from 9pm-8am. i gave him a dose of Alumina 30C on the 6th day and he pooped within 20 minutes. but was from then on very cranky!

It was also that day or the next that he suddenly started the waking every hour. he also began to kick his legs when trying to go to sleep and seemed to be unable to relax enough to allow my patting to help him to sleep because the kicking would begin and wake him. I now have to wear him in the frontpack to get him to sleep again. he has a babybjorn bouncer that he loves and learnt to kick in at 3 months and will sit in it and kick incessantly for 3 hours at a time! this kicking motion is now what he does when trying to go to sleep for naps or at night.

simultaneous to the waking every hour his naps worsened and he also now wakes up and i go in to find him having rolled onto his back and frustrated. no knowing how long he had been on his back though.

my mind says this is related to a brain leap, but surely a brain leap doesnt mean he needs to wake every hour!!

Any advice? If I think of any other useful symptoms Ill add a reply to the post.