Almost 3 year old having split nights-send help?

[Mumma291097]

I’m looking for some polite advice on the matter of split nights. My son will be turning 3 at the end of this week(4th) and lately, he’s been having split nights, which occur at least 4-5 times a week. My son has no naps during the day(we completely dropped naps at around 26 months) and currently has a 7:30pm bedtime. Falling asleep does not pose an issue for him and majority of the time, he will be asleep within 45 minutes. However, the last couple of weeks, he has been waking up between 2am-5am thinking it’s time to play and he will be awake between 90 minutes and 2 hours(and very rarely sometimes longer). When awake, he’ll run around his bedroom, kick his bedroom wall(as his bed is pushed up against it), will kick the headboard of his bedframe and will babble constantly(as he is still non-verbal). He has a water bottle in his room with him, in case he gets thirsty but I find, if I go and sit in his bedroom with him, he’s even worse. I have a camera in his bedroom which connects to a video intercom on my phone so I can keep an eye on him. His bedroom has a safety gate across it so he can’t go anywhere but in his room but I am losing my mind trying to think about what to do for the better. Any polite advice/tips would be appreciated 🙈

He’s not having “split nights”

He has got in a habit.

Tongith - you go in, “it’s night time, I’m tired. No playing. Get back into bed”.

rinse and repeat. Over and over. He will cry and whinge. Ignore. Repeat above.

He will be over it in a couple of days

What is he wearing to bed? The last couple of weeks the temperatures in the early mornings have dropped and he might be feeling cold which is waking him. Dd2 who is 8, has mentioned it and she is ensuring her duvet is tucked in properly so it doesn't slip off because she found she was waking up about 4am and chilly.

But also, like pp said, go in and put him back into bed. Keep repeating it, even sit with him until he is sleepy again but he needs to understand that night is for sleeping.

Yep, tough this one out, “ nighttime is for sleeping, back to bed”
Repeat until he gets it.

He either wears a pair of pyjamas with a short-sleeved vest underneath or he wears a sleepsuit with no vest. In terms of bedding, his duvet is still a summer one so not sure if it might be worth investing in a thicker tog duvet for him and see if that makes a difference.

I’ve tried this method and he doesn’t seem to cry. He sees it that I’m playing with him and I feel myself becoming frustrated and having to walk away in order to take a breather and prevent myself from becoming even more stressed.

My son has suspected ASD and he’s non-verbal so I’m not sure how much he truly understands. As I said, if I go in his room and try and comfort him by shushing, tapping him gently, smoothing his head or rubbing circles onto his hand, it seems to make him worse.

So the alternative

“ back to bed, I’m tired, this isn’t the time for playing so you WILL get back in to bed and stay”
is worth a shot

and definitely a gro clock

TLDR: if your son has suspected autism, poor sleep is a very common trait. Raise it with his paediatrician or GP to do a referral asap.

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Are you linked in with a paediatrician if your son is under assessment for autism? if so contact them and get this flagged early. If not please ask your GP for a referral.

My son is autistic and his excellent sleep routine changed completely the week after he turned 2. We had many split nights which got gradually worse. He would be running round the house and bouncing on his bed (stimming) as if it was the middle of the day. I was frequently on the motorway at 3am with him in the car seat as the movement (sometimes) helped him drift off again.

I wish I’d raised it with the GP sooner to get a paeds referral rather than living through it and accepting it as one of those things. He started on melatonin just after he turned 4. So we did 2 years of what i now recognise was a sleep disorder and dysregulation.

it takes a long time to reach medication stage - and rightly so - we had to keep multiple sleep diaries and go on sleep hygiene courses first. the last option is usually meds but it was one that worked for us. We had to introduce an additional medication to help keep him asleep on top of the melatonin but we have since weaned him off that one totally and he’s now on a very low dose of melatonin only — thankfully we’re out the other side with the help of a solid sleep ritual in the lead up to bed time.

the odd split night is probably natural for small children but if keeps up the frequency you describe please seek medical advice. The first doctor i mentioned it to said the patient was me (and my husband really!) in a way as it was impacting so much of our life.

good luck!

Sorry OP. Have been there with my Asd son now 15. Woke up every night until he was 10. What I did was: put him in his bed and lie down next to him. When he was older and came into my room in the middle of the night I just put him down beside me. I didn't talk to him, I was just physically present and showing that it was sleep time. Went on for 10 years until he got Sertraline for OCD. It worked against his anxiety and he could stay all night in his bed.

What I would really recommend is to not talk when he wakes up. Just get down in bed with him and keep your eyes closed and hold him so he feels secure and loved.

Thank you for your polite advice. I’m sincerely hoping it’s just a phase he’s going through as he’s always been a really good sleeper up until around the beginning of the 6 weeks Sunmer holidays. He’s back to Flying Start from today so I’m hoping the routine will knock his sleep schedule back to normal 🤞 I will definitely monitor if it becomes worse and will mention to my GP/Health Visitor.

I really wish this worked with my son but unfortunately, he only has a very small toddler bed(which my 5’2 stature) won’t fit into and I’ve tried laying on the floor with him in the past to try and cuddling him in the hope it’ll settle him but he’s very strong for an almost 3 year old and will just wriggle his way out of my grasp 😢

My daughter did around her third birthday. We had about 6 weeks of her waking up pretty much every night and thinking it was play time for hours on end. I was on my knees. But then it just stopped and she started sleeping through again.
The only thing that helped was giving her a Yoto so she could listen to audiobooks when she was awake. It didn't make her sleep, but it meant we could sometimes go back to bed and she would listen until she was tired again.
You have all my sympathy, it honestly was the most horrific phase because you didn't know if it would ever end!!

My dd woke up until she was 7, she climbed in with me for a cuddle and fell asleep quickly. Night terrors woke her. Have you tried not locking him in? Never heard of barricading children in their rooms

My 3 year old has split nights when I’ve put him to bed too early. For example on Sunday he slept in until 9am and knowing he needs 10.5/11 hours I should have put him down at 10/10.30pm. But I wanted an evening so put him down at 8. He was tired enough to sleep because he doesn’t nap anymore, but with an early bedtime it’s like his body treats the first part of the night like a nap. He was up 3-5 (and I had to be up at 5.30!)

so try moving bedtime back an hour. It might do the trick

Ps my elder dd (who slept better) has asd and only needed 8 hours sleep by 3, annoyingly! If he’s going down at 7.30pm he might be waking because he’s really had almost enough sleep, and potentially it’s needing the toilet that wakes him because he’s becoming aware. I would definitely recommend pushing bedtime back a bit

Can you keep up him later? It's like his first sleep is the nap. So keeping him up later might mean he is even more tired and more likely to sleep through the night.

Maybe a little power nap in the afternoon would help as well, so he can stay up later.

Stop touching him, that'll wake him up, not send him back to sleep

He’s already wide awake so it’s not like I’m waking him up. This isn’t helpful advice at all. I’ll do what I like with my own son.

I found that if he was napping during the afternoon, he wouldn’t go to sleep until around 10/11pm at night and some nights, he’d still wake up early. I’m beginning to think he might be one of these children who just doesn’t need a lot of sleep 🤣

It’s not “locking him in” as you so impolitely put it. The gate is there for his own safety so he’s not wandering around the landing wide awake 🙄 I’m looking for helpful advice, not people criticising my parenting

@Mumma291097 what you describe is very common with asd so as soon as you posted this it made sense. Please ignore the 'bad habit' posters. What you need to do is try to establish his most common waking time. 15-30 minutes before that, you need to give him a little nudge, just enough for him to react but not wake up. After a few nights his sleep cycles will reset and he should be sleeping through within about 2 weeks. Downside is you have to set an alarm and wake up to do it but short term pain for long term gain and much easier now rather than when he gets older. He will probably never sleep as long as typical children might so a slightly later bedtime might prevent very early waking once he sleeps through. Good luck.

Ah, I feel your pain! We had split nights for 3.5 years. I have no suggestions, we just needed to wait it out and it resolved on its own.