One step backward? Two steps forward?

Sunday night was rough.
10:30 pm - Max goes down for the night the first time- pretty average

2:30 am - Max wakes up and I go in and start our normal nighttime routine (feed, change, feed again, put down) But I get stuck on repeat for almost 2.5 hours because as soon as he hits that crib mattress he is flailing around awake again.

4:45 am - Jack wakes to see someone sitting up in his bed and is terrified until he realizes it's his tired nub of a wife looking at the baby monitor trying to will her baby to sleep.

4:47 am - Jack (even though he has to be up for work around 6 am) relieves me for baby duty and comes up with the cool idea of aiming a fan at Max's mobile for him to stare at since he isn't sleeping.

6:30 am - It becomes apparent that Max is not going to commit to sleep or being quiet and Jack puts him in his electronic rocking swing in order to give me some sleep before he leaves for work

8:20 am - Max wakes again after two blessed hours of uninterrupted sleep on my part

8:30 am - I decide I need more sleep still and take him to bed with me to side nurse and nap a bit *

11:00 am - I decide to get up after having been awake for a little while- Max continues to sleep for another hour or so.

*I don't think I can do this anymore because it gives me really bad dreams of him coming to some kind of awful harm due to my negligence or misdeed. I haven't decided if I'm going to write those down or not- they're pretty traumatic.

So- all this leads me to last night- through my observations of him and some stuff that I had read online I decided to try swaddling him to see if it would help.

He slept for 4 hours, ate, then another almost 4 hours (this second stint is the really cool part- he has had problems with it for the past several nights if not more), ate, then another hour and a half! I got to "sleep in" until 9! Yippee! Then he happily played on his mat for 30 minutes or so- so far today is a much better day than anything last week.

I wonder a bit about swaddling him again- because it felt like progress not to- but sleeping better for both of us has to be more important right? His blankets are a bit small though- his feet stick out the bottom- so far he doesn't seem to mind. He actually acted relieved to be wrapped up and didn't struggle or anything- I think his arms are what's really bothering him.
I don't know if it's having slightly more control but not full control that is waking and frustrating him or if it's one of those regressions that happen right before some new milestone or if we're silly and should have been swaddling him this whole time.
Whatever it is- I'm glad that something helped.