Split Nights help!

[PocketRMama]

My 8 month old has always been a solid sleeper. From 3 months she has slept pretty much through the night (incredibly lucky I know!)

around 2 weeks ago we decided to try and drop her 3rd nap as it was falling so late in the day that it was pushing bedtime till after 8pm. She was sleeping for around 2hrs 15 over three naps.

we dropped to two naps and her total daytime sleep did go up slightly to 3hrs 30ish and bedtime was brought a bit later due to her settling into longer wake windows. She was doing 2.5/3/3.25 and going to bed exhausted.

since dropping the third nap we have had split nights around 5 times a week. She is waking around 2/3 and taking over an hour and half to go back to sleep. She is rubbing her eyes, pulling her ears and just staring into space so really tired, it’s like she wants to sleep but just can’t get off!

she cut two teeth last weekend and is still showing some signs of teething but this doesn’t seem to be the issue.

I honestly don’t know whether I’ve dropped to 2 naps too early, if she’s overtired/undertired/going through a development leap.

any advice would be so welcomed and appreciated as at the moment it feels never ending!

Hiya :) Sorry to hear you're struggling. Split nights are usually caused by either a developmental leap (is your little one learning a new skill at the moment?) or too much/little daytime sleep.

The average amount of daytime sleep for 6-9 month olds is 3-4 hours across 3 x naps (morning, lunchtime, afternoon). And the average amount of night-time sleep is between 10-11 hours. So I would look there first and make some tweaks if necessary.

I actually wrote a blog about split nights recently. You can read it here: https://www.moonchildholisticsleep.com/blog/understanding-baby-sleep-and-split-nights-causes-and-solutions

Hope this helps! x