Why is Our Child Awake and Ready to Party at 2am? The Split Night Nightmare
You have a wonderful, independent sleeper who takes great naps, falls asleep at bedtime with no issue, and they used to sleep all night. Suddenly, a pattern of being awake in the middle of the night emerges. Nothing you do gets them back to sleep- no amount of rocking, nursing, bouncing, and white noise seems to help. Baby is chipper, smiley, happily babbling away and ready to play.
What are you doing, child?! The middle of the night is for sleeping!!
This phenomenon you are seeing is called a “split night.”
To really understand, you just a quick background on sleep science. Basically, babies (and adults) wake and sleep on a relatively predictable day-night schedule. This is our circadian rhythm. We also build up what can be called “sleep pressure,” a product of a day full of activity, play, work, and learning. Babies sleep their best when they are put to bed with just the right amount of sleep pressure: enough to be tired out but not overtired. Overtired babies get a second-wind and may have extra energy, be edgy, act a bit wild, and not appear tired. This behavior usually means you missed the ideal wake window for your child.
Now, split nights happen when baby’s natural circadian rhythm and age-appropriate sleep pressure are misaligned.
This can happen due to sleep disruptions, such as illness and the development of new skills. These instances are tiring and frustrating, but fleeting. They should correct themselves after a few days.
A far more common culprit is a scheduling issue in which baby is getting too much daytime sleep or is on an inappropriate schedule for their age.
I know it hurts, but you are just trying to eke too much sleep out of your baby. Every child has a unique balance of sleep needs, but most fall with a range of average.
Oh, you say they used to take fabulous long naps and sleep 12 hours overnight? Well, those days are behind you and your baby’s needs are changing. As babes grow, their sleep needs gradually decrease until around age two when they may only need a total of 11-14 hours. This means that the average 18-24-month baby may only sleep 10 hours at night and take a 1-2 hour nap during the day.
These recommendations reflect the average sleep needs by age. There will always be children who fall on either side of the norm.
Now that your heart has been broken, let’s work on fixing baby’s split nights.
Step 1: Calculate how much sleep they are getting per 24-hours.
How long is their typical nap or naps? How much sleep are they getting at night? Do not count the time they are spending awake in the middle of the night.
Step 2: Compare the amount of sleep your baby is getting against how much sleep you are trying to see and refer back to the chart above.
Do you see a conflict? Probably.
Step 3: Make some changes to their sleep schedule to create a balance of total hours spent awake and age-appropriate wake times to build up sleep pressure.
Example 1: 17-month old
Wake 7:30 am
Nap 1-4:00 pm
Bedtime 8:00
Awake at night 2:00am- 4:00am
Awake for the day 7:30 am
Problem: parents are trying to squeeze 14.5 hours of sleep out of a baby who needs less sleep. Resolve the split night by waking baby for the day a little earlier and shortening nap down to as little as 90-minutes for a total of 12.5 hours of total sleep.
Example 2: 9-month old
Wake up 7:30 am
Nap 1 10:00-11:30
Nap 2 2:30-4:30
Bed 7:30 pm
Middle of the night waking from 1:00- 2:30
Problem: This baby still takes two naps for a total of 3.5 hours, and you are trying to get 12 hours overnight, totaling 15.5 hours. That is newborn level sleep, and something has to give. Resolve the issue by adding more wake time to the day, waking baby earlier in the morning, adding 15-20 minutes to each wake time, and moving bedtime later to 8:00pm, to reduce baby’s total sleep to fit into the average window.
Example 3: 14-month old
Wake up: 7:00 am
Nap 10:30-11:30
Nap 3:00-4:00
Bedtime 8:00 pm
Middle of the night waking 3:00-5:00am
Problem: baby isn’t able to build up enough sleep pressure to sleep all night. Time to drop the morning nap and move to a single-nap schedule, which will allow your baby more time to “tire out” before bedtime.
I truly hope this helps you! I know that hearing that your baby gets too much sleep is the last thing a parent wants to hear, and we’ve all been told never to wake a sleeping baby. Sometimes, something’s gotta give. If waking a sleeping baby means they go back to sleeping all night, it is worth it.
If you need help correcting your child’s split nights, schedule a short call with me at www.mothertogether.com/discovery-call and we can work through it together.
