Help has anyone solved split nights?!

[caramelsauce]

Please tell me someone has a magic cure to stopping split nights!

21 month old is waking up for 4-5 hours every night for the past week.

Last time we went through split nights at 18 months it lasted 6 weeks! It just seemed to resolve itself one night but now it’s back.

Routine hasn’t changed at all so I’ve no idea what is causing this maybe teething but calpol or ibuprofen doesn’t help.

Wakes up hysterical and will only calm down when taken downstairs, doesn’t want cuddles will just thrash around only goes back to sleep after 4-5 hours when totally exhausted.

I just don’t know what to do! Any ideas welcome

My first guess would be the nap being too long and/or bedtime being too early.

What's the routine?

Yeah, we had to rework naps. It’s typically a symptom of too much sleep, which was the case for us.

Yes I’ve tried shortening the naps. Previously was napping from 12.30pm until I woke her at 3.30pm. I have now been waking at 2.30pm instead so 2 hours nap is this still too long? Today she had an earlier nap 11.30 but only lasted an hour and half. She woke up an hour after going to bed tonight though.

bedtime routine is
6 bath and pjs on
6.30 bottle
7pm bed

I put her down awake then leave the room and she doesn’t fuss or cry and goes to sleep within minutes.

Gosh so she's been going to bed only 3.5 hours after waking up from a 3 hour nap!? That sounds insane to me as mine would just not go to bed and would be running round like a lunatic. I guess you've got in a viscous cycle because she's probably taking such a long nap because she's not slept much at night and then not sleeping much at night because she had such a long nap?

At that age mine would've had to be up by 2 to go to bed at 8. We started having to wake him from his naps at 18 months. Normally his nap was 1.5 hrs unless he was up very early in the morning. They're all different though and you probably have to do some experimenting to find out the right routine?

Have you worked out how many hours she is actually asleep for in 24 hrs? That might help to give you an idea of how much sleep to aim for in the day to get a reasonable amount at night. Does that make sense?

Eg. Say she sleeps 12 hours a day, you might want a nap at 12-2, bed at 8pm and start the day at 6am.

You're probably going to have to force her awake from naps and morning lie ins for a couple of weeks or so to try and reset her body clock. You're basically going to have to only allow her body to catch up on rest at night. Like you'd do with jet lag?

Id also anticipate disturbed nights for a while until she gets used to it.

Can you give the full day's routine? I.e. what time she wakes up etc. I agree it is normally caused by too much sleep overall. She either needs to wake up earlier or have a shorter or less no. Of naps. But I can't figure it out as I don't know what the full day looks like.

My DS 21 months only has a 40 minute nap. This isn’t by choice - he just always wakes up after 1 cycle, but it seems to work well and he does sleep well at night.

He started waking up too early recently so we put his bedtime back to 7.30.

What time does she get up in the morning?

Thank you for replies.

Her normal routine before the split nights was.

wake up between 6.30-7am
lunch 11.30
nap 12.30-3/3.30 (I would have to wake her)
bed 7pm (falls straight asleep)

today she napped 12.30-2.30pm (I woke her)
she went to bed at 7pm fell asleep straight away
woke at 10.30pm but managed to get her straight back to sleep with me on the sofa
and then woke again at 12.30am hysterical crying and showing no signs of going back to sleep yet.

Have you calculated how many hours of sleep she's getting in 24 hours compared to the recommendations? I would do this before deciding what next...

Is anything else happening in her life?

Have you considered the environment? I'm not sure taking her downstairs to sleep on the sofa gives the message it's still night time/sleep time? We have had times we've had to reset but stay upstairs and do things like look at the stars, play a lullaby version of Old MacDonald etc. Basically nothing too exciting!

There's no need to cap naps necessarily. It does depend on each child. I know my 20 month old needs at least 1 hr 30 mins in naps in order to sleep well at night. If she naps for two hours I put her to bed 30 mins later so she's still getting the same 5 hour wake window she seems to need right now.

@Flittingaboutagain

At the moment she is getting around 9 hours sleep in 24 hours. I think the recommended sleep is 12-15 hours?

There’s no changes that has happened in her life recently.

Yes I agree that taking her downstairs isn’t ideal however it’s the only way to calm her down. She is hysterical and just throws herself around banging her head until I do.

I haven’t thought about trying a later bedtime as she goes to sleep so easily at 7 but maybe adjusting that so she has a 5 hour wake window after her nap is worth a try.

Hhhmm I think maybe more than 13 hours of sleep in a day will be problematic. I would potentially try pushing bed time until 8pm. Wake up at 7. No more than 2 hour nap in the day time. See if it helps. It could also just be a phase while she is transitioning to a new nap/sleep cycle.

My DS did this on and off from 12 months until he turned 4, it was awful.

I think he was chronically overtired, once he woke he just couldn't go back to sleep. He was tired but far to wired. He always went to sleep very quickly at bedtime. Your child sounds overtired if they're waking so soon after going to bed, and being distressed.

It finally stopped for us in the first Covid lockdown where he had to relax and chill due to being at home. It solved the over-tiredness. Obviously no one wants to be lockdown for 10 weeks but we still had a solid routine even with being stick at home. Fresh air and exercise as much as we could.

At 21 months, DS would have had a nap 11.30/12-1.30/2pm. I never let him nap past 2pm and no more than 2 hours. When he woke in the night, we kept him in his room, in bed, and dh and I took it in turns to stay with them.

I have found that it takes a couple of weeks to bed in a new routine. Your child may well be dropping the nap entirely and it's a vicious circle. Poor nights sleep, needs a long nap which results in a poor nights sleep. DS was 2.5 when he stopped napping and it was painful for a while as he was so tired, I didn't leave the house with him for weeks after lunch so he didn't fall asleep in the car. I just had to push him through to bedtime. We did see an improvement in his sleep once he stopped napping.

Hi,

I'm jumping on this thread as desperate for some help/ideas! My 17m old was a fantastic sleeper up until about 11m - then the split nights started! 6m on and we're still going strong (probably 5/7 nights a week) and it is absolutely killing me! Any thoughts/ideas much appreciated!

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

Sometimes she only sleeps for 1.5hrs but this doesn't seem to have any impact on the night! Any help gratefully received as it is killing me and am sure am about to lose my job through not being able to function!!

Did anything in your routine change at 11 months? How long is your daughter up for in the night?

Hi - thanks so much for replying.

We went on holiday (for a couple of weeks) when she was about 11m and tried to stick to the same routine but she never really settled back down when we came back.

She is normally awake 2-3hrs

@Sleepyhead1010 At the moment you are expecting 2-2.5 hours sleep in the daytime plus 12 hours at night so 14.5 hours in total. This is a lot of sleep to expect at 17 months old. It’s exceeding the upper end of the average amount of sleep for that age which is 11-14 hours. Excluding the split night she is actually sleeping 12.5 hours in a 24 hour period which is actually reasonable and well within the average. What you want to do is consolidate this sleep into one long chunk at night and one nap. To do this you will need to expect less hours in bed overnight, probably 11 hours is more realistic so she needs a later bedtime/earlier get up or both. You might also need to cut the nap down too. You basically need to calculate how you want to divide her 12.5 hours into a way that works for you e.g. 11 over night and 1.5 in the day or 10 at night and 2.5 in the day. It will take a while for her to readjust so don’t expect miracles overnight.

Thanks so much @Starsandstripes24 that makes sense - will give it a go and fingers crossed!

I suppose what I was wondering was whether she dropped a nap around 11 months or just after? People often get this trouble when whatever is happening with naps/bed time is just not right for the current sleep needs of the child. My son has never done it with the regularity you describe but I've found it happens when a nap drop is in progress.

I think if she was just up for an hour in the night it could be a phase or something but given it's 2-3 hours I would definitely agree with what @Starsandstripes24 said and my original response to the op.

I found at 18 months ds's sleep needs dramatically reduced and unless he had been up very early I had to cap his nap to 1.5 hours and aim for 8pm for falling asleep at night, so 6 hours awake. My ds is very sensitive to needing exactly the right amount of day sleep to sleep well at night. Perhaps the same for you?

Thanks @LGBirmingham. She dropped a nap at 13m which then seemed to make the split nights worse (going from about 3 a week to every night).

The comments about sleep sensitivity make sense as I think we have just been battling since then to work out a nap routine that works without any joy.

When she first dropped to 1 nap (at 13m) I was limiting her daytime sleep to 2hrs - and experimented with shortening this which didn't help (but she may have been too young?) I then tried lengthening the nap and letting her sleep for longer which did seem to help a bit as we'd get a 3-4 day stretch without a split night but then they come back again!! But maybe now she is older I should try shortening again - just desperate to find something that works consistently for a bit!!

Thanks so much for your comments! (You can probably tell by the time we're in the middle of another split night!)

@Sleepyhead1010 How's it going? sorry for the slow reply.

I couldn't say whether you we're doing the wrong thing limiting her naps at 13 months, was she struggling to fall asleep at night? I always let mine sleep as long as he liked when he first dropped to 1 nap at 14 months, it was quite easy to just push bed time back if he napped later. It wasn't until the mega bedtime resistance at 18 months that we started capping naps and bed time became 8pm generally.

I guess if yours dropped to one nap at 13 months then it stands to reason she would be needing less nap now at 17 months?

I personally think over tiredness and under tiredness can both cause split nights which makes it confusing. Although I think both are to do with the day routine not being right.

I found mine tends to do a split night if his nap routine has gone out and he stays up too long in the day but also goes to bed early to compensate. I think from what I've read that's a mismatch of circadian rhythm and sleep pressure. For instance he randomly fell asleep at 11am in the car at the weekend and ended up with only half an hour nap at that time. Then he was asleep by half seven as he was exhausted (normally between 8 and 8:30) and then was up for 1.5 hours at about 2am, not causing trouble but just trying to get back to sleep and tossing and turning. Had that half hour nap been between 1 and 2 it would all have been ok, he really doesn't need to sleep much in the day any more and will likely stop napping soon.

He's thankfully never done these 2+ hour split nights people describe but one of my friend's children did and would be up for 5 hours sometimes and be properly awake. They always just let her sleep as long as she wanted at naps and in the morning after a split night they also seemed to let her lie in to whenever she was ready as she doesn't go to nursery so nothing to be up for. I never commented as it wasn't my place but it seemed to obviously be the problem from the outside. I've read so much about sleep thanks to ds I was interested in what caused the situation. It seemed to stop for them when they started limiting her nap very drastically. Likewise whenever I read about people with these mega split nights on here they seem to be in a similar situation where the child is taking a really long nap and then going to bed only about 3/4 hours later. I think this is also a mismatch of sleep pressure and circadian rhythm?

I'd recommend reading Lyndsey Hookway's book 'Still Awake' if you haven't already.

I think if I was you I would try moving bedtime to 8pm and see if that helps before thinking about capping the nap. Keep us posted on how it goes.

Thanks so much @LGBirmingham - I've ordered the book!

Yes I kind of feel I did a bit wrong by her at 13m by capping her daytime sleep when she probably needed more (so was probably doing split nights through overtiredness then) but have never been able to find a good balance since then and now she is nearly 18m am not sure if it's under/over-tired!

I've tried doing a 12:15-2:15 nap the last 3 days which hasn't really seemed to help so am thinking of trying 12:30-2/2:15. She is always shattered at bedtime and asleep within minutes so am not sure I could really push bedtime later.

Thanks so much for the help - just so lovely to have a bit of support!

My 21mo has to be woken after 40mins nap otherwise she won’t go to bed before 8.30pm or if she does, she does a split night. There’s not enough sleep pressure. 2 hours is a long nap at this age. Wake her after 1 hour and put her to bed at 7.30 with the aim of a wake up at 6.30am.

@Sleepyhead1010 I have been tweaking naps and found that by limiting them to 1.5hrs and not letting DD nap past 2pm then this stops the split nights and she sleeps 7pm through to 6am.

I think you need to try adjusting the nap to see what works best for your DD and give it at least a week to see if it helps as it took a few days for my DD to adjust and obviously catch up on sleep from all the split nights.

@caramelsauce that's great news! Glad you've got it worked out now.

@Sleepyhead1010 I totally hear you on not being able to get the right routine atm. Can't manage without a nap, but must only be 30-45 mins in the middle of the day or bedtime is a nightmare as not tired enough, bedtime also a nightmare if it happens too late because overtired and emotional and/or hyper and then also has a disturbed night, nap too early or late and everything is a disaster.

Trying to get nursery or babysitting sisters to understand all of this and implement it is nearly impossible and they put everything out of sync.😂Ruddy 2 yearolds.

I reckon caramel has a good point about being exhausted. You might find she's not as knackered at bedtime once she's caught up from the split nights. I've found as ds has got older that night sleep counts for more than day sleep if that makes sense?

@LGBirmingham thank you!

I thought I had jinxed it last night as just after I posted my DD woke up crying! I didn’t go straight to her as it wasn’t her usual distressed cry and after 20 mins she went back to sleep by herself! Then slept through until 7.

This was after she had a shorter nap in the day due to falling asleep in the car.