12.5m old - split nights - tired!!

[ecossegirl91]

i have a 12.5m old who has been loving a split night for the last month or so. I’d say 3 nights out of 7 he’ll go to bed between 7&7.30 and sleep till 5.30am but the other days of the week he’ll wake at 1am ish and can be awake for 2-3 hours. If we pop him back in his cot during this time he just moans and cries.

I have him on 2 naps still (on the days he’s home and at weekends, he’s at nursery 3 x per week and they just nap him once and he will sleep anything from 30-1hr 15m at nursery but that’s it and he’s shattered and it doesn’t prevent the split nights).

he does love a long morning nap tho and I cap his afternoon one but I know everyone does it the other way around however I tried this a while back waking him after 30mins in the morning and I just got 2 crap naps 😂

he doesn’t fight his naps or his bedtime but the split nights are horrendous.

do I persevere with trying a short morning sleep rather than a long one in the hope that he’ll have a longer afternoon sleep? Current routine when not at nursery is

can wake anytime between 5.30 and 6.30 but even when he wakes up “early” I keep his nap time the same as I heard really early morning naps just make the morning wakes earlier?
9.30 nap - I wake him after 1.5hours but he could easily sleep on
nap 2 is at 2.30pm for anything between 30mins to an hour, I will always wake at 3.30 to maintain bedtime of around 7.15/30.

does it matter the morning nap and afternoon nap are the “wrong way around” - is this causing the split nights?

I wouldn't worry about if morning of afternoon nap is longest. Quite usual and common for the morning nap to be best (which goes against what Gina Ford taught us in the 90s). Some babies have a really long morning nap and the way they move to 1-nap days (yours isn't ready for this yet) is to make that morning nap start later and later, limiting the afternoon nap instead.

So don't worry about that.

I would suggest the essentials of your problem can be summed up as: more sleep = better sleep, less sleep = worse sleep.

I don't think your 12mo is getting enough sleep when at home, and woefully not enough sleep on nursery days.

When on 2 nap days, the average wake windows are 234 - 2h from waking in the morning to first nap, 3h between the two naps, 4h from second nap to bedtime. This assumes 15h if sleeping 24h. So a baby getting 10h per night means 5h daytime sleep, or 12h at night 3h daytime sleep.

Your average routine:
6.00 wake
(3h30 awake)
9.30-11.00 sleep
(3h30 awake)
14.30-15.15 sleep
(4h awake)
19.15 bed

I think both naps need to be earlier, which should make them longer because baby will be less over tired. Morning nap is especially late.

I'd suggest:
6.00 wake
(2h awake)
8.00 nap - for as long as needed
10.30 wake if not already awake
(3h awake)
13.30 nap, earlier if nap was shorter.
15.30 wake if not already awake
(4h awake)
19.30 bed

Tackle shifting the whole day later (to make wake up time later) once the routine is established rather than at the same time.

Nursery days are a shower other problem. Once getting more sleep tho, it should encourage more sleep at nursery too. But ud expect (and allow for) "catch up" sleep on days at home after nursery, to avoid overtiredness building.