Split Nights at 5 Months

[splitnighthelp]

Hi everyone,

My LO is 5 months old and has moved into his cot. He was in a crib next to my bed where he would lightly wake several times throughout the night and I could quickly get him back to sleep, he was then waking up ready for the day at around 5am or sometimes at a push 6am.

Now he's in his cot he sleeps a lot better as he has more room but wakes at 3-4am and is fully awake. From anywhere between 40 minutes to tonight which has so far been over 1.5 hours.

I follow wake windows during the day, he is now on 3 naps and has a longer nap and 2 shorter naps. He is napping around 3 hours a day in total.

We have a good bedtime routine and have followed this for months now. He is in bed asleep by 7:30pm every night.

No idea what I can do to fix this? All I can think we can change is waking him up consistently at the same time every morning? Due to the split nights the wake ups have been getting later and later. Almost 8am one morning..

Help

Are you feeding him when he wakes? Because my guess would be he is hungry.

Could also be to do with settling method - what do you do during his time awake to settle him? What do you do at bedtime yo settle him?

Is the cot still in your bedroom, next to your bed?

@FATEdestiny I've tried feeding and not feeding and the wakes where I feed him he's awake a lot longer than when I don't feed him. Some of the nights where I don't feed him I can get him back to sleep in 40 minutes but when I do feed him it's well over an hour, sometimes 1.5 hours.

I had worked a lot on self settling but since he has started learning new skills I can't lay him down awake anymore as he just wants to practise but then gets frustrated and cries when he can't do the things he is trying to do so atm I have to hold him whilst he is falling asleep.

He seems to sleep 9.5 hours before waking but some nights this week has been less than that. I've started consistently waking him up at 7am and last night was horrendous as he was over tired but tonight has been a lot better. He's woken up 15 minutes ago and seems to already be going back to sleep 🤞🏼

I guess your other option would be to start the day at 5/5.30 ish which sounds early
But I think is quite the norm for babies of this age - first nap around 8ish

I have to hold him whilst he is falling asleep.

That's the root cause. If he is to fall asleep cuddled up to you, he will settle more easily if he stays cuddled up to you. How about cosleeping?

Another option to try would be a wake-reset late in the evening - say 11pm. The idea is to restart his big block of sleep so push his wake up later. The idea would be to wake as you go to bed, change nappy so that it's less uncomfortable in the morning and feed to ensure the calorie top-up. Then resettle back to sleep.

So last night was a lot better.. woke at 4.45 am and back to sleep within half hour, then up for the day at 6:15am.

Definitely the fact he isn't self settling is contributing but even if he was spending the half hour self settling I'd still be up as he's so bloody noisy . Think it'll be a long time yet before I can get back to putting him down awake which is frustrating as he'd mastered it until he learnt to roll over. Problems with having a very determined baby .

I might try waking him up at his dream feed if we have another bad week that's a good idea.

I can't really start waking him up at 5am as sometimes I've only just got him back to sleep (after a 1.5 hour stint of being awake) by then so he'd be getting a lot less night time sleep