HELP! 18mo having split nights

[MayasMama]

So my partner & I are losing the will to live... our nearly 18mo DD has been having split nights for around 6w now & N O T H I N G we do seems to help.

She was a solid 12h sleeper beforehand, so the luxury of a full nights sleep has well & truly spoiled us 🫣

Her typical day:

6:30-7am: wake-up, cows milk
8:30am: bfast
11:30/12pm: lunch
12:30pm: nap (1.5-2h)
3pm: snack
6pm: tea
7-7:30pm: cows milk & bed

I know there's no magic one-size-fits-all approach to this but for our sanity please someone tell us this gets better or there's something we've not tried yet 🙏🏽

Sincerely
One tired mama x

What is split nights?

If you mean waking up then it will pass .... hang in there

No advice unfortunately just solidarity as I'm in the same boat been up with my 15 month old for 2 hours now.

Your timetable is EXACTLY the same as ours, it could be my timetable! And we have the exact same problem (hence why I'm awake at this ungodly hour). DD is 1 year and has just dropped to 1 nap a day but this was happening before this. I'm going to try reinstating 2 naps but they're both such a fight, and end up only lasting 30 mins each, whereas with one nap she goes down easily and always sleep 1.5-3 hours 😭 don't know what to do.

It's the term I see used for when your little one decides that for 2-3 hours during the night, they don't actually need to sleep whatsoever 😅

@55christmasmagic how did your night go in the end? My daughter woke at 11:50pm & went back off somewhere after 2am. Then woke at 6am 🫣😵‍💫 x

@goodmorningsunny ohhh I feel you 😫 does having the 2 shorter naps help with the nighttime? I feel as though my daughter is going through some sort of separation anxiety which we've never experienced before... always asking for a "duddle" (cuddle) when I'm putting her down for sleep etc... & clinging on to me like a koala at the same time ☹️

Or... maybe it's nothing to do with that?! Fml 🥲

I’ve been through this with my eldest and we had to cut down naps and push bedtime back until she was tired enough to not do it basically! Naps then increased again when she was through the regression / phase. So firstly you could try capping nap at 1.5 hour and using upper limit of bedtime 730. If doesn’t work try 1.5 hour nap and 8pm bedtime …if still doesn’t work cap the nap at 1 hour etc! But allow a few days for each schedule change to work as sleep pressure takes a few times to build up again.

split nights are awful! My youngest who is 13 months has just been doing it and we also successfully stopped it by doing this. We do also cosleep though so that might help too is there’s some separation anxiety

Oh and if doing the above make sure they’re waking up at same time everyday …like if they have a split night don’t let them have a lie in the next morning as you’re then back in the loop of not been tired enough

OP my eldest did this last year when 14 months old. It lasted 2 to 3 months (sorry!) and nothing I tried helped. And I tried a LOT. It seems to be a very common phase they go through. I can tell you it stopped as randomly as it started and he's a solid 12 hour a night sleeper again. Persevere. Everything with small kids is in phases. This too shall pass!

Hi,

Just joining this thread as I am in the same boat and desperate for some help!! My 17m went from being a fantastic sleeper to split night hell at around 11m old - 6m later and we're still going strong!

Her routine is:
7am - w/up and milk
8am - b/fast
11:15 - lunch
12 - nap (2-2.5hrs)
5pm - tea
7pm - bed

I was just wondering if anyone has any tips/what worked for them? This and working is absolutely killing me and I'm losing the ability to function!

I

@Sleepyhead1010 I feel you 😵‍💫 so since posting I think we had maybe 1 or 2 nights where she made 6am... but it seems now we've FINALLY turned a corner.

I think the "regression" passed but by then bad habits had set in & then she become poorly - throw teething into the mix & you have a recipe for more early wake-up's & split nights 😅

Not saying any of this is what helped her out of that phase but we swapped her duvet back to a sleeping bag, moved tea time slightly later (to rule out hunger), no matter what time she naps she is up by 2:30pm & bedtime is somewhere in the region of 7pm, depending on her & when she's actually showing signs of tiredness.

I honestly hope your little one comes out the other side soon - it's beyond killer ☹️ always here for support! xxx

Thanks so much @MayasMama - am holding on to there being light at the end of the tunnel!

I feel the bad habits creeping in too! Given "good" habits haven't made a difference I'm kind of taking the easy route but think that may come back to bite me!

I also find teething so hard - as don't want to be drugging her every night but equally am never sure if that's what's waking her (or at least the excuse that night!!)

Anyway rant over - thanks so much for the message and 🤞for tonight!

Hi guys, I’m picking up this thread in desperation. My DS is 20m. We had a horrible 5 months of split nights until he was about 15months old, then it seemed to right itself and he was doing lovely 11-12hr nights. Now, seemingly out of nowhere he’s doing the split nights again. We’ve had a week of it so far and I’m absolutely dreading the thought of months ahead like this again. I honestly feel really down and teary at the thought of it. I know many of you have said there’s not much that helped other than riding it out, and of course we found the same last time. I guess I’m just sharing my misery!

Massive hugs from me - they are absolutely brutal.

Not sure I have any magic solution. I'm afraid. My DD did split nights regularly from 12-18m (I started this thread in that period). We found shortening her nap and also pushing it back a bit later seemed to help - and she suddenly seemed to get a lot better at 18m (we were then doing a 1hr nap at 1pm and she was in bed 7-7. She sometimes chats for ages before sleeping but we found that made the night better).

She is now 24m and started doing a few split nights against so we cut the nap to 50mins which seemed to help.

Not sure if that is any help but just to say you are not alone and sending hugs your way as split nights are torture!!

Thanks Sleepy, appreciate the support - it’s so tough!

It's so tough! We've had our fair share of split nights and from reading into it more and trialling different things it seems it's essentially mostly because your expectations of how many hours they should sleep within 24 hours is too high and as they've got older they don't need that amount of sleep anymore. So they sleep for a few hours at the beginning of the night and then they feel refreshed so stay awake for a couple of hours before finishing their nighttime sleep.

What's your schedule like now?

Thanks gentle. See, I would agree with you except both times when DS has started split nights it’s been when his sleep/naps have dipped. For instance, we’re recently back from holiday and he’s back at nursery and in a new room there. His nap has reduced (I assume while he’s getting used to the new space and staff) from 2hrs to around 1. He also cries on drop off atm which isn’t like him. So my hunch is that it’s predominantly separation anxiety and/or some overtiredness? I might play around with the nap though where I can. Our routine before holiday (where things started going wrong!) was roughly up at 6.30, nap at midday-ish for around 2 hrs and bed at 7-7.30.

I really wish it was as easy as just putting him in bed with us when he wakes as I’d happily do that for more sleep but that’s never worked for either him or my older DD. They usually just want to be held which is back breaking!

@Notsuredontknow it's so hard trying to guess at what's causing the problems! When he's awake in the night is he happy and awake and feeling playful or is he unhappy and whingey/crying? If it's overtiredness I would think he wouldn't be too happy? It definitely sounds related to the change in routine though!

Hi there,

I am currently navigating split nights with my nearly 19th month year old, and I am feeling a bit desperate. How did things work out with your bambinos? Did the split nights eventually stop?!

We have had split nights off and on for months and months. Our son dropped to one nap quite late - around a month ago - and if he has a solid nap of 1.5-2 hours, the split nights seem to occur less, but he only ever sleeps around 50 minutes at nursery and arrives home exhausted. We usually have to put him in bed around 18.45, and then the split nights happen. We've tried occasionally giving a very late micro-nap but that doesn't seem to help, and there is no very obvious pattern, as sometimes he does them even when he had a good day nap, or even when we revert to two naps. I think he is overtired rather than under tired.

Does anyone have any tips for helping toddlers sleep better at nursery? He now has to sleep on a mat, and I wonder if this is why he only sleeps 50 minutes. Will he somehow get used to sleeping so little? The advice for this age is a 2-3 hr nap!

I feel really trapped by the nursery dynamic, and the split nights are really impacting my mental health and ability to work etc. My partner tries to share them, but our son usually prefers me.

It would be great to hear if anything helped and to know that there is some light at the end of this tired old tunnel.

I should add that he is awake for almost three hours at a time. It is absolutely killer!

Hi @Wonderweeks86. Ouch I feel your pain. My DD is now nearly 3.5 and the split nights are (generally!) a thing of the past - though she can still produce the odd one.

I'm afraid I never found a particular silver bullet to sort them out (sorry as know that's probably not what you wanted to hear). A few things that helped:

• For us they sometimes happened (especially between 12-18m) when she was too tired - literally fell asleep as soon as I put her into bed. For this a really early bedtime (6pm) actually sometimes seemed to help. For us the split nights started earlier (around 11pm) at this time.

We then had a spell 18m-2ish where she slept much better...

• As she got older and started dropping her nap they started again (occasionally). It then seemed a mix between under and over tired. With the latter the split nights started later (2/3am). We ended up cutting her nap quite brutally and this seemed to help - although sometimes led to over tiredness and more split nights!

It is absolutely brutal. The main thing that got me through was I ended up keeping an old cot mattress, pillow and blanket in her room and then just going and lying on the floor next to the cot so I could half doze and just say "ssssh" whenever she got a bit loud.

Sorry - not sure that it's much help but it does get better!! X

Hi @Wonderweeks86 yeah my little one has just turned 3 and has been a great sleeper for a while now (hope I haven’t jinxed it!) but like Sleepyhead I can’t honestly look back and know what made things better. I do remember that sleep very suddenly got better without us doing much (I felt like I’d tried everything at that point so was just trying to get through it). Also like Sleepyhead I think it was a mix of over and under tiredness at times. I would just say do whatever you need to do to get through this horrible phase quickly. I used to bring him downstairs at 2am and put his fave show on the TV cos it was the only thing that would chill him out and seem to set him back into sleepy mode - past me would have worried about setting bad habits etc but it didn’t, and it was preferably to sssshing and rocking him in a dark room for hours. I feel for you - it’s so tough but like I say, we have a great solid sleeper now so it does end. Sending strength.