Two years of split nights

[Genuinelyenquiring]

Our boy is about to turn 3 and since he was 16 months has done split nights. He'll wake between 1 and 4 and stay awake for exactly 2.5 hours before going back to sleep. Believe me when we say we have tried absolutely EVERYTHING we can think of. He is happy enough in his bed but calls out sporadically and I can hear him so I don't sleep.

Has anyone had this? When did it end? Did anything help? Absolutely desperate.

Yes, I had this. Our interval was/is 3 hours. It was worst from 6-18 months. We'd have a few weeks where it was every night then it would ease up a bit and maybe a few nights a week. Occasionally a good stretch with not many of them and then back to every night.

In all honesty she still has them at 5 (and I'm still up with her for them), but they are rarer. We have a few a month (sometimes more sometimes less) now. We've had a few weeks at a time without one and then we might have a couple. When she wakes I have about 20 minutes to get her back to sleep or it's 3 hours.

The only triggers we have identified are it being very hot and her being very tired. For unrelated reasons, she still naps (she has a medical issue causing fatigue) and if she misses one then the split nights are more likely. Split nights today mean ages tired which then cause more split nights so they tend to come in clusters

If I had a solution, I wouldn't still have the issue what I will say though is that sleep is a lot more manageable then it was. At it's worst she'd wake every hour or two aside from her 3 hour wake. There were the occasional nights where she had 2 x 3 hour wakes. So say 9-12, then 2-5.

In general though, it's gradually improved over time, thank goodness.

@Babyboomtastic thank you for this and im very sorry you have gone through this. I wonder if it's more common than I thought. It just feels so relentless and brutal.

Like you, we have better periods and then very bad periods and I wonder if it's habitual sometimes. We will try and settle him more quickly and see if that works. Between him and his siblings, I'm on my knees.