Split nights. Help!

[DiaDeLluvia]

Hi all,

looking for some advice or just to know how long I am going to face this - the seventh circle of hell.

LO wakes every 1-2 hours from 8pm-3am
From 3-4 or 3-5 he’s wide awake.
From 5:30/6/6:30 (depending on when he went back to sleep) he’s up for the day.

he is 5.5m, ebf (I’ve tried starting food but he doesn’t seem interested at all) and sleeps in a next to me at the beginning of the night then I switch him between my bed and the next to me for the rest of the night in the vain hope of getting him to sleep. Sometimes he goes back down with the intense rocking of the next to me but sleeps fitfully as if he’s being forced to sleep when he doesn’t really want to.

our routine is that he goes down for his first nap at 8:30 because of the school run. He sleeps for 45 minutes.

at 11:30 he goes to sleep for another 45 minutes to an hour. At 3 he goes to sleep on the school run again waking after 45/60 mins.

he goes to bed at 7:45/8.

I don’t know how to fix it. It seems like he’s not getting enough sleep but he’s just so awake and not in a frantic, unhappy way - he seems calm and relaxed most of the time. It’s been like this for just under a week with the long night wakes but nothing in his routine has changed - he does have a cold.

what can I do about this? If your baby did split nights how long did it last?

until last week he was sleeping 8-6 or 6:30 waking every 1-2 hours for a feed. What I wouldn’t give to go back there!! I’m not expecting him to sleep through - just wanting an end to the split nights.

yhanks in advance. Sorry for the long tired ramble.

Bump

Oh god, split nights are absolutely hell. Your naps sound pretty good, you're doing well to get him to have longer than 30 minute cat naps. I had split nights from 5.5 - 7 months. About 5 out of 7 nights they'd be awake between 1-3am for 1-3 hours. It was hell! Things got much better once we transitioned to 2 naps at 7 months and my DD started having longer naps but we needed to cap daytime sleep to 2.5 hours otherwise she'd have a split night. When she started moving and crawling at 8 months she actually needed more sleep again so had to put to bed early. Try calling daytime sleep first to see if it helps

Capping

Thanks for your response. Really reassuring to know that there’s a way to tackle it and that there may come a time when he needs more sleep!! At the moment it feels like he needs less than me

I don't think you can actually fix split nights, I think it's sadly just something some do. My DD1 grew out of by 18 months, praying DD2 doesn't start 🤞

Have a look at wake windows, my little one is 8 months and 3.5hours awake is his absolute maximum, they say sleep feeds sleep so sometimes this helps!

I'm not an expert but also had an early riser lol! And found that putting him down for his morning nap too soon was making the nights harder.

We are on occasion transitioning to 2 naps a day but if he is up at 6 as normal then usually 3 naps but the last one is around 4pm for a max of 30 minutes.