Split nights • 3 month old • advice needed

[Jessica753]

My baby has started doing split nights for a couple weeks now. She wakes around 1 or 2 and stays awake till 3 or 4 and I’m genuinely exhausted. Trying to be the best mum for her and my 7 year old son is so hard on so little sleep and it’s breaking my heart that I’m failing them. When she wakes in the night she has a feed and then won’t go back down, she’s not upset or anything just wide awake and babbling away but she will cry if I try to put her back in the crib.
she is usually awake between 8 and 8.30 and naps fourish times a day ranging from 30 to 40 mins each time and her wake windows tend to be an hour and half. She goes down relatively easily. Her bedtime is around 7 pm. Is there anything I can do to help her with the split nights? I used to be able to feed her then set her back in her crib with no issues. I’m not sure if I should spend those hours she’s awake hopelessly trying to settle her or if it’s a better idea to just get up and let her play until she’s ready to go back down?

I'd cut to 3 naps - one 90mins after she wakes and let her wake about 40mins

Then go for a lunchtime one but do it in a way which means she will sleep longer (eg if she sleeps longer in the car / buggy / your arms, do that). Aim for 2x sleep cycles (2x 45mins back to back)

Then a mid afternoon nap (this then is the first one to drop).

What happens during the 1am feed? If you picked her up (asleep) at 11pm and did a dream feed, might she sleep through the later wake?

I will try the 3 naps today and see how it goes - thank you! I’m just worried she’ll end up getting overtired but if she slept better at night time that wouldn’t be as big an issue I don’t think.
she won’t sleep in the car or pram but might sleep longer if I held her for the nap.

she’ll usually wake up fussing for a feed and I’ll feed her and she’s settled but awake and that’s when it all starts and she won’t go back down, then she’ll usually have another feed a couple hours later before she finally goes back to sleep.
I’ve tried doing dream feeds but it doesn’t really help much unfortunately. Sometimes I’ll try a dream feed and she’ll end up waking up an staying awake for a while or I’ll do a dream feed and she’ll still wake up at 1 anyway which is what happened last night.