An average sleeper but im exhausted

[Letsallscreamatthesistene]

Hi everyone. I dont feel like im justified to moan as I know others have it way worse. My son is 9, very nealy 10 months old. We have a solid day time routine of an hours nap in the morning, then a slightly longer one in the afternoon when he wakes up at 3pm. We go upstairs and start the bedtime routine at maybe 6ish, and hes generally asleep by 6.45/7. He'll sleep well until about 2am, at which point hes wakes up and will be awake until about 3.30am. He wont be settled, hes just awake. Im happy to leave him in his cot to grumble a bit, but ill go in to him if hes distressed. More often than not though, hes just happily awake and chatting/shouting to himself. After this he generally sleeps until 6 when I get up with him. Im a nurse and ive gone back to work. Im exhausted. My DS helps, but he also has to get up for work at 6. Ive tried shortening the daytime naps in case hes getting too much day sleep and letting him sleep how long he wants. It makes no difference. It isnt a case of self settling. He can do that, ive watched him do it. I genuinely thought he'd be sleeping through by now. I suspect hes a baby that just doesnt need that much sleep and he wont sleep through until hes gone to one nap per day or dropped naps totally. Has anyone else been in a similar situation? How did it pan out? Did you baby just start sleeping through, or was it as I suspect? Experiences and thoughts please 🙂

You have a right to feel exhausted no matter how differently others experience it. There's a reason sleep deprivation is a method of torture!
My only comment is I've learnt babies really do have ups and downs with sleep and to get the balance between sticking to routine and going with the flow. I've just come out of a horrid patch of sleep with my 17 month old. I know she can self settle, I know she was getting the correct amount of sleep through the day and she'd previously cut 4 teeth so didn't feel she was teething yet she was waking up screaming every two hours. No idea why. Just cut us all some slack and went to bed as soon as I could to maximize my sleep and made easy dinners, ready meals etc and didn't put extra pressure on myself in the day. Its passed now, as I'm learning these things do. I know not much advice but you're not alone xx

P.s. my DD started sleeping through at 2 months, this stopped at 4 months, slept through again at 14 months after many ups and downs, this stopped at 16 months and I feel is just about to start again after she's been doing some long stretches. But who knows? I just don't have any expectations anymore and relish the good sleeps when they come

I would say your baby sleeps better than the average child. DD1 started sleeping through at 2.5 yrs and DD2 is from from that at 18 months.

I think you need to go to bed earlier at least a couple of nights a week.

This is really normal- both my two (one terrible sleeper, one fairly good sleeper) did this at this age . Definitely go to bed when the baby does. Say you're asleep by 8pm - that's a solid 6 hours until he wakes, then a couple of hours top up when he drifts off. You'll feel much better! They do stop doing it (eventually).

Maybe I’m just a terrible mum but why don’t you just let him get on with chatting away and go back to sleep? Sounds like he’s happy most of the time so leave him be!
I turn down the monitor low enough so I hear cries but not chatting and crack on.

My sympathies. 9mo is not great at sleeping either, however we only get 2 hr stretches :( have you tried making bedtime later? Maybe he isn't tired enough hence wakes up for the day so early?

That's actually lots of sleep- from the mother of a DS who woke 2 hourly every night til nearly 2 and was down to 1 nap, max of an hour at 10 mo.

Plus there's usually a lot of development going on around 8-10mo so even good sleepers regress/ progress and have some difficulty.

It's quite normal to not sleep through even occasionally until well into the second year (yep us!)

And it's taken us to 3y6mo for that to be most nights and minimal faff at bedtime.

As I wasn't prepared to sleep train, I went to bed early (like as soon as DS had gone to sleep type early)

As well as going to bed earlier, can you do turns about with the baby's dad? Then you both get a full night's sleep every other night.

Mine sleeps much worse than yours but I'm not working yet so I do really sympathise.

why don't you and your DH take terms to sleep with earplugs in so you each get a full night's sleep every other night?

Thanks for replying everyone. Im well aware its not the worst sleep, but coupled with work its finishing me off.

I have a feeling this is going to stick around for a while, so ill ask DH if we can alternate nights.

As an aside, the PP who mentioned development might have it. My DH and I were saying last night how in the last month or so we've seen huge cognitive development.