Split nights are draining me

[louchelashes]

DS is 17mo, eats well, happy boy, very chatty and mobile. Runs everywhere! At nursery 4 days a week. During the weekend and my day off we are outside and doing stuff at least once a day,
plenty of opportunity to wear himself out etc.
Split nights are breaking me, he’s had them 95% of nights for over 3 weeks now and I’m at my wits end. They have no set time and vary every night.

He is generally happy during them, just chatting away to himself. He sometimes gets upset or whiny in which case I’ll eventually go in; replace his dummy and give him some bum pats. But my god the chatting, it’s loud and constant and can last up to 2 and a half hours - in which time I’m wide awake listening to it.

We have tried capping his nap to 1.5h max but that doesn’t seem to be helping. Sometimes going in helps and sometimes it doesn’t, tonight I’ve left him to his own devices and it’s nearly 2 hours of being up and showing no signs of sleeping. He is so busy in the day. He often starts bashing his head into his cot mattress, not sure if this is normal or not?

I don’t know what else to do. I am at breaking point, I can deal with wake ups where you can resettle a baby/toddler but when he’s just so awake and chatty it’s impossible.
What can I do????

Are you responding to what he's saying?

He is generally just repeating his favourite words - nee naw, police car, tractor, cat, bear, uh oh (this one when he throws his dummy out the cot every now and then) - nothing that would necessarily require a response or being asking for anything. He will say snack or cup for food/water when he wants it.

What are his wake/sleep times and normal nap times and routine? He is making up for the lost sleep somewhere you so need to figure out how he’s managing it and stop allowing that to ensure he has enough sleep pressure to get him through. Also who puts him to bed and how?

Normally wakes between 6.30-7.15, naps 12-1.30, bedtime between 7-7.30 depending on how tired he is. Either me or dad will do bedtime, bath every other night, cuddles and books in his sleeping bag then he’s put down in his cot awake and will self settle to sleep no issue. He is getting about 1-2 hours sleep in the day then around 9-10 hours at night as he’s usually up for about 2 hours.

That’s quite a late wake up for a 7pm bedtime. It doesn’t feel like it 😬 but 7.15 is a lie in for a 17 month old. It might feel counter intuitive but I’d either consider capping the nap even further (max hour) which will hopefully force him to need more overnight sleep OR I would start waking him consistently at 6-6.15am. I know you’d be loathe to do this when you’ve had such a crap night but he is spending up to 12 hours in bed and only 9-10 of those actually asleep. i think you’d actually see quicker results with capping the nap further.

We have had phase of split nights with both DC (although youngest is my worst sleeper 🙄) and it’s often because there’s not enough sleep pressure.

So he has 9-10 hours sleep overnight and 1-2 during the day, totalling 11-12 hours sleep in 24 hours. He's happy, chatty, mobile, and not showing signs of being tired with this amount of sleep from what you say. Therefore that is the amount of sleep he needs, but you are trying to get him to sleep for more like 12-14 hours - he doesn't need it! Therefore he sleeps his first stretch overnight, wakes up and feels refreshed enough to stay awake for a couple of hours. You're putting him to bed way too early. Try putting him to bed an hour later, from 8-8:30 and you will almost definitely see the split nights stop.