Has anyone ever fixed the absolute hell of split nights?

[Bluestripeysocks]

Here I am anticipating LO waking from his afternoon nap and dreading the night ahead already. I don't even want to go to bed because I know my night will be a shower of sh... just like almost every night for the past 9 weeks.

LO is 7 months old and from about 5 months has been waking any time between 2am and 5am. Not particularly hungry but will take half a bottle or so. He just wants to play, be awake, chat etc. He is happy, no eye rubbing, no yawning, no crying, no whinging or moaning. Just... AWAKE. And if i leave him to it, he coos away for a while then shouts and cries till I come back. I pat him, cuddle him if he's very upset, shush him and reassure him. Then hes happy again for about 5 minutes before I have to come back. If i stay in the room with him, even not interacting, just sitting by the cot, he is fine. Stays awake for 2 hours, shouts for a cuddle, then off he goes back to sleep with no fuss.

No matter how long he has been awake at night, he wakes between 6 - 7am. He naps twice a day for 1.5hrs each. Typical nap schedule seems to be 9 - 10:30 then 1:30 - 3. At each nap time he is basically pleading with his eyes to be put to his cot. Goes from bouncing around happy to very ready for sleep in the space of a few minutes. He absolutely would not be able to go longer between naps and attempting to put him down earlier has been a bust too. Wake windows tend to be 2/3/4.

Bed time is a solid routine of starting with a bath at 6:30pm, lotion, pyjamas, sleeping bag, lullabies and sometimes he has a bottle. He doesn't need this bottle to get to sleep though and there doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason as to when he wants bottle before bed and when he doesn't. I always offer though. He is put in the cot drowsy, not asleep and gets himself to sleep by 7pm. Wakes any time between 11pm and 1am for a nappy change and bottle which he always finishes. Then I go back to bed knowing that the next few hours better be good sleep for me because thats basically my lot for the night.

Since he was born he has slept with white noise and a dark room at night. He slept great until this split nights rubbish started. I'm at a loss at what to do. He has black out blinds, white noise, gro egg to monitor temperature - which is pretty stable all night at 19 - 20. (He wakes up WAY more frequently if it's any colder). Naps are easy to get him down and you could time your watch to them.

Please tell me someone has found out the reason for the absolute nightmare that is split nights. The internet tells me is he overtired, also undertired, also wake windows are too long but also they are too short. Is this just something all babies do and I just have to suck it up until he decides to stop? (OMG please no)

@Bluestripeysocks how are you getting on? My 8 month old sounds exactly like yours, did anything help?

@sunsunflowerandivy You have all of my sympathy. This was SO HARD to get through. The worst part is that I don't think I did anything to actually fix it. Tried a few suggestions that I was given but nothing made any difference. In the end I bought a blow up mattress and put it in his room beside the cot. When he woke and it looked like he would stay up for a while, I would just transfer myself through to his room for the rest of the night. Minimal interaction, just reassurance and soft talking if needed. I was given the wonderful advice here that maybe he just needs to know that if he needs me, I'm there. So that's what I did. If anything it helped me accept that this is something a lot of babies do at some point and my job is to support him through it and give him the time to figure it out. It tested my patience to the absolute limit.

Then.... one magical morning I woke up at 6am in my own bed. Horrified and convinced of the worst I jumped out of bed to check on him and there he was sleeping peacefully. He went from 3 bottles and 3 wake ups (one of them being a looooooong wake up) to sleeping through. For absolutely no reason.

He now naps once a day for 2.5 hours, goes to bed some time between 7.30 and 8pm and wakes at 6.30am. Hasn't had a night feed or extended wake up since that first sleep through. He has the occassional wake up when he cant find his dummy or if he needs a new nappy, teething pain etc but generally sleeps all night.

I'm so sorry you are experiencing the split nights right now. It really is so hard.

So glad to hear it worked out in the end for you! What age did he start his magical 6am wake ups @Bluestripeysocks ? I’m on month 2 of split nights and currently watching lo on the monitor rolling about having a great time. I too have been advised to cut back sleep, give more sleep etc and nothing seems to be working! One last question did crawling, standing, etc make the time awake harder to deal with? Mine currently rolls a bit and plays with dummy but terrified this won’t be entertaining enough soon and we will have to start taking them out of cot etc.
Fingers crossed mine magically figures it out one day soon

@Cocolocochocco I think he was about 8 months when the split nights stopped. When he figured out crawling he was still awake the same times but instead of rolling he crawled around. It was actually soon after learning to crawl that it all stopped. I was terrified that learning to stand up by himself a month later would bring it all back but it didn't. He is quite close to walking now so we are getting nervous about night sleep again... So far so good though!
I hope you got some sleep last night!

@Bluestripeysocks I think I've cracked it. I have cut right back on daytime sleep so she has no more than 2 hours 15 mins (45 mins morning and 1.5 hours afternoon). The best nights we get are when she sleeps 2 hours in the day.
She just cried all through her first nap so not sure what that was about so we will see what happens today

@sunflowerandivy Hooray!! So glad something is working for you. I have my suspicions that mine was on the transition to only needing one nap. It was really early for that but since being on one nap he is an amazing sleeper and has no problems going 6 or so hours to bed time. Maybe yours is the same and will go to one nap earlier than expected. A lot of people will have a go about that and say too young for one nap but all babies are different. Once I let go of what was "expected" and let him do his thing, everything was great and he got settled to a routine very quickly.
Very occasionally he will still have 2 naps but if I try to force an early nap (for example if we are going out and I need him awake for it!) he just screams and kicks until I get him up. Can take a baby to bed but you can't make em sleep! Haha.
So glad you are getting there!

I'm back to split nights. It's been 4 weeks of hell. She's almost 14 months and I have dropped her to one nap but it's not making any difference. She wakes between 2:30 and 4:30 and is awake for 1.5 hours at least! It's hell. Arrrrrrrrrgh!!!
She started walking a week ago and is trying to talk - maybe it's that?! I'm losing my mind! My brain is so broken from all these awful nights.

@sunflowerandivy oh nooooooo!! Poor you. I have so much sympathy for you. The walking and talking night wakings were thankfully short lived for us and we haven't had any more split nights. I wondered if having the room a bit warmer during winter was contributing to the good sleep. Any time he woke previously I always thought he could do with being warmer. Worth a shot for you maybe?

Hey y’all! Sorry to jump on this old threads but I’ve been seeing it pop up on the front page at regular intervals and I didn’t want to start a new one because there’s already about a million.

Just seeking reassurance that this just… ends? One day? LO is 1 next week and past 4 nights has woken between 10-11pm to cry cry cry for about an hour, and then babble for another half hour before going back to sleep. He’s never sleeps well, has always woken frequently since the 4 month regression but these long wakes are a new development! He can be bounced to sleep but not put down and he’s getting a bit too big for holding too so I tend to just lie down next to him and wait, which feels awful because he’s so upset but I don’t know what else to do 🤷🏼‍♀️ he’s often also then restless for the rest of the night too. He’s just started saying some words (shoe, dog, down, car, bzzz) so I guess it could be that? If it’s language development then how long can I expect the sleep to be rubbish? He’s been walking a while so it isn’t that.

Oh, he’s also been on one nap since 10 months, so it’s not a nap transition.

The good news is our split nights improved significantly once we sorted the ratio of day to night sleep. We had a good month or two around 12-13 months. 4 nights could just be a developmental leap and what you are saying makes it sound like it is just that. 🙏The fact your lo is crying suggests it isn't a split night caused by undertiredness. When we got them ours would be babbling, giggling and generally happy as Larry as they just weren’t tired enough.
The bad news for us is at 14 months its all gone to hell in a handcart. Up every hour crying inconsolably and also cannot be put down once bounced to sleep. I suspect we might have got a bit too excited dropping to 1 nap and now we have overtiredness and teething at once!
If it continues for longer than a week or two the best advice is to look at the ratio of day to night sleep. Maybe their nap is too long so you aren’t building up enough sleep pressure to make it through the night? On rare occasion they are caused by overtiredness, so perhaps with all the development they might need support to nap a bit longer in the day?

Hey!!id love to chat more about this. My daughter has been doing it for more than a year now and I’ve tried everything. Could you share more details with me about your experience please!!!

Hi everyone,
Sorry I know this thread is nearly a year old but we've been dealing with split nights a fair amount with our little one on and off since he was probably 6 months old and he has just turned one.

They have been worse for the last month and I feel bad but I just leave him to it. He's pulling himself up and rolling around...usually lasts an hour and a half to two hours. I thought it was just him learning to pull himself up to standing etc. I've come for reassurance that it is ok just to leave him to it?? I've been googling for a while just to try and get some kind of comfort that it is ok to leave him to it...he never cries (unless he has accidentally hurt himself by falling over in the crib), sometimes winges but I thought it was best to let him self soothe than to pamber to him but now I'm thinking maybe I should try and get him back to sleep??

Please help this mum guilt I feel.

If he is happily rolling around and not upset, I would assume it is him learning to self soothe so I definitely wouldn't interfere if he isn't upset.

If it concerns you though you could set up a mattress in his room so you can at least lay down and doze but still be close if he needs you. That's what I did and it saved my sanity.

Sending lots of comfy floor sleeping vibes your way. It will end one day. X

Hi!! Did it ever stop with your little one?

@Isabellaaa3 yes it did. At around 8 months. I don't know why it stopped but could be a combination of him moving himself to one nap very early, making his room a little warmer or just growing out of it. He's a great sleeper now.

We had awful split nights from when my son was about 9m until about 13m. Just here to offer solidarity tbh because I can’t say we found a magic cure. DS’s sleep got much better (split nights disappeared) when he started nursery and dropped down to one nap - I don’t know if that was what fixed things or if it was a coincidence. Anyway, as they all say, it does get better but I know how horribly hard it is in the moment so sending strength OP.

Oh! Just seen this is an old thread! Interesting to see his sleep improved on one nap, just like my DS. Glad you got through it OP!

My daughter did this! She’s one now and sleeps well - this will pass!

I think dropping her third nap helped - she had to build up more sleep pressure to sleep through the night. We got her into the routine of a short morning nap - 20 mins max from about 0940-100 - then 2 hour lunchtime nap 1230-1430 then bed at 1900.

She would be shattered by bedtime but this got her sleeping through. Bath time and stories got her through that last very tired hour!