10 month old split nights or sleep regression?

[Tigerraar]

My 10 month old has been having long night time wake ups (1.5- 2 hours), which I was blaming on sleep regression but it's been going on for nearly 6 weeks and I'm questioning whether she's going to come out of it on her own. I decided it is time to run it past the collective wisdom of Mumsnet before I cause us more (short term) pain.

We don't have a rigid routine by any means but it's roughly this

7.00 - 7.30 wake up
8.00 breakfast
9.30 bottle
1000 nap 1
12.00 - 12.30 lunch
2.00 bottle
2.30 nap 2
3.45 - 4.15 latest end of nap 2
5.00 dinner
7.30 bedtime

Total day time sleep is about 2 to 2.5 hours.

Around 6 weeks ago she started waking up very upset in the night and needed rocked back to sleep. Some nights it took 4 hours to get her back into her cot as she kept waking on transfer. More recently, she wakes content, chats to herself, tries to get to sleep but makes no progress and after 30 to 60 minutes I end up going through to her. For the last 2 weeks, I've been bringing her into my bed. These wake ups normally start between 3-5am.

In the middle of this 6 week period, I decided to wake her about 7am each day and she did start to sleep through the night, but my reason for waking her was actually to try to bring bedtime forward. Bedtime always ended up about the same time, she was doing short naps and so was losing sleep across the board but (and I have only just realised this) during that period she slept through 6 nights out of 7. I then went away for a couple of nights, the first of which husband had a horrendous night with her, let her sleep until she woke at 8.30 and her naps started to lengthen again. Since then, we've had good naps, consistent bed time, but nightly wake ups and we've let her sleep until she naturally wakes in the mornings.

I'd been thinking this was a sleep regression that would naturally run it's course but actually, now I think we need to try a consistent wake time. It brings pain of its own variety so before I start, I wondered if there's anything else anyone would suggest? The old adage of never wake a sleeping baby is ringing in my ears.

Editing to ads - sorry for the long post and much appreciation to anyone who reads it!

I think you need to limit the second nap. Waking a baby is fine.

I found sleep around this time was really rough. I don’t think there is a magic answer where you can just fiddle with naps and it all goes back to being easy. Most 10 month olds don’t sleep through. It will all change again in another month or two anyway. I would personally just ride it out and do whatever means you get the most sleep. It could be going to bed when she does. You and your partner alternating nights especially if you are back to work. Your partner getting up in the morning with her while you go back to sleep for as long as possible, etc.

Thank you for the replies.

@CitiesInDust we often do but the time varies depending on how long she's been asleep and we try to only wake her at the end of a sleep cycle.

@mindutopia sleeping through isn't necessarily the goal but I'd like to eliminate the long wake ups. She's normally very good at getting herself back to sleep, so even on the nights I've classed as sleeping through, she's likely been awake and got herself back to sleep without needing help. I use huckleberry but I wouldn't record those kinds of wake ups. Now that I'm bringing baby into bed with me most nights, I'm coping better than my husband despite doing all the night time stuff. He is having to get up to see to the dogs if I've got the baby in bed with me, but he has health issues so this is having a big impact on him and a knock on effect on his work. He's sleeping in the spare room otherwise neither of us would be sleeping at all 😅 But I know where you're coming from, and we might go back to just waiting it out if playing around with naps and wake up times doesn't help.

At that age I only allowed a 20 to 30 minute second nap.