HELP!!!

Anyone have experience with split nights? My LO can sleep great through the night or an entire nap (when he wants to lol) and knows how to self-soothe. But he’ll wake up all throughout the night from 12-6 babbling and talking. We’ve tried to let him work it out but he will not go back to bed. Even when we soothe him in the crib or rock him back to sleep, we always end up in the same spot in another hour or so. I know we need to play around we nap times and bedtime to figure out his perfect sleep amount. Anyone have schedule suggestions? Right now we’re doing two 1.5 hour naps during the day, last nap waking at 3:30pm. We start his bedtime routine at 6:30pm and end with a dream feed at 7:00pm. He usually falls asleep during his feed and we transition him to the crib. If he’s awake after, we will let him stay up until 7:30 or 8:00 before putting him to bed. He wasn’t a great napper as a newborn and I feel like he might just need less sleep than most babies? Any advice or insights would be SO helpful! We feel like since the 4m sleep regression, we haven’t slept. 😭 attaching a pic of his schedule for reference!

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We did 8-12 pm shift and 12-4am shift. My husband would get up at 4am. We slept in different rooms.

My son was like this for a bit. We do first nap from around 11-12/1 and second nap about 3-4. Then bedtime around 7:30/8. He usually wakes around 6, with multiple feeds overnight. My husband works nights so I don't have any help for the most part, so I had to find something that works for him. My best recommendation is to get baby to sleep as soon as you start seeing tired signs. To me, it sounds like your LO is overtired. Same thing happened to my daughter when she was this age

I would try to move the feedings around so that the “dream feed” is maybe an hour after falling asleep My pediatrician said to have solids 1x a day at 6mo, 2x a day at 9mo & 3x a day at 12mo Maybe cut out a solids feeding and offer a smaller bottle as a dream feed after an hour or two of sleeping so he stays full and sleepy My girl nurses to sleep and dream feeds an hour-2 after falling asleep and does really good through the night

Also agree with the comment before me, maybe move bed time up an hour so the last wake window is only 3hrs instead of 4

@Selena @Shelby Thanks for the suggestions! Split nights is actually caused by going to bed too early or sleeping too long during the day, not a lack of sleep or being overtired. Baby isn’t showing hunger or tired cues when he wakes up in the middle of the night, he’s just up and wants to talk/play. Just trying to find the sweet spot for nap length and bedtime :)

Sounds like a sleep regression due to sleep development - baby wants to babble instead of sleep!! The usual suggestion is to try to ignore it if he’s not upset so you don’t start creating sleep crutches by going in and helping him. How long does he stay up for at a time?? How much sleep is he actually getting overnight?

There might be some sleep associations at play too like nursing or rocking to sleep that he is getting up for as well. Whatever way a baby goes to bed is what they expect when they transition between cycles / wake up momentarily. If you put baby down awake and they go to sleep independently, they are more likely to sleep through the night.

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