Have you ever had a little one who goes to bed beautifully, sleeps for a few hours, and then suddenly wakes up at 1 or 2 a.m. and seems ready to start the day? They aren’t crying. They aren’t sick. They’re just…awake. Sometimes for an hour. Sometimes for two or three hours…

If you answered yes, this is for you!

In this post, I will answer the following questions:

• What is a “split night”?
• Why do split nights happen?
• How can you solve split nights?

So first, let’s make sure we’re all on the same page…

What is a “split night”?

When I say “split night,” I’m talking about a solid 1-3 hours in the middle of the night where your baby or toddler can’t or just won’t fall back asleep.

I’m not talking about a night feed. I’m not talking about a 20 minute wake-up where you have to rock them back to sleep. I’m not talking about them getting out of bed five times in the middle of the night because they’d rather sleep in your bed.

And I’m not talking about a one-off, rough night.

I’m talking about, they wake up in the middle of the night – maybe midnight, 1 a.m., 2 a.m. – and no matter what you do (or don’t do!), they just won’t fall back asleep. For a good hour or two, maybe even three hours.

And this happens every night, or a few times a week. It’s become a norm, or expected; something you dread because it’s so regular.

And “split” night, because it’s like your child’s nighttime sleep is split in two shifts instead of one big beautiful consistent sleep. It’s like two big naps with lots of frustration in between.

Now, regular night wakings are exhausting and frustrating, but I have to say, split nights are like another level of exhausting and frustrating.

The majority of babies and toddlers struggling with split nights are totally content and just hanging out in that 2ish hour awake period. They’re trying to fall back asleep, singing to themselves, or cooing during this period of wakefullness in the middle of the night. You might even be in there trying to help them, but nothing is happening.

Whereas some babies and toddlers who are struggling with split nights are frustrated and really trying to get back to sleep, mom and dad are trying to help, and nothing seems to work until time just kicks in.

Why do split nights happen?

Split nights are usually pretty simple.

Not simple as in, “Duh, why haven’t you figured this out yet?!” But I do want to say split nights are pretty simple, as encouragement that we can fix them!

And I say split nights are usually simple, because they’re usually due to one of two reasons: scheduling or lack of independent sleep skills.

A scheduling issue is probably the most common reason for split nights, but I’m actually going to start with independent sleep skills.

Because if your little one needs help falling asleep at bedtime, we have to start there. Scheduling could certainly be a part of it, but I would not be confident simply giving a parent a schedule change to solve split nights if they were still being rocked to sleep or co-sleeping. Or if your baby or toddler still uses a pacifier (don’t worry, we’ll get there).

The Most Common Reasons for Split Nights

1. A lack of independent sleep skills

When your little one needs you to help them get to sleep – they need to be fed to sleep, rocked to sleep, have their bum patted, or you lying next to them – as they experience natural night wakings, as we all do, they won’t be able to roll over and just go back to sleep. They’ll wake up looking for that same help getting back to sleep; they need you again!

And most of the time, you can pop in there and feed them back to sleep. Or you can lay on the floor, and it might be 30ish minutes, but you know they’ll fall back asleep. Your little one still needs your help, and you’re still tired, but you know they’ll fall back asleep.

But sometimes, in the case of a split night, it doesn’t matter what you do. It’s like your child is just wired. Or maybe still tired, but they just can’t fall back asleep!

The way I explain this connecting to a lack of independent sleep skills is now that you’re back in there, there’s a level of interaction. They’ve just slept for 6ish hours, which is a pretty solid nap. They woke up, and now mom’s in there, let’s party for a bit! Or dad’s there, he’s really fun – what can I get him to do? So your baby or toddler can’t get back to sleep – they need help. But also, you’re there so now they’re stimulated and sleep doesn’t seem to be in your near future.

Now I need to clarify something here. With all this talk of independent sleep skills, I need you to hear me say that the whole “drowsy but awake” movement is wrong! For newborns, laying them down “drowsy” can be helpful, but after that 16ish week mark, or four months old, NO MORE DROWSY!

Some people think their babies are independent sleepers, but they lay them down already half-asleep. Or they lay them down as soon as their bottle is done and they’re out within 30 seconds of hitting the crib. Or they lay them down asleep, but their baby’s eyes pop open when they hit the crib, and then they go back to sleep, so they think they have independent sleep skills.

Eh, wrong!

Laying babies and toddlers down drowsy can absolutely be a cause of split nights – because it’s not actually independent sleep. They’re getting help 90% of the way there, and we really need them awake.

I’m not saying sleep training is simple – if it was, I wouldn’t have a job – but something as “simple” as sleep training could quite literally solve this split night! Because rather than waking in the night and needing help getting back to sleep, but then being stimulated by your presence, they roll over and go back to sleep! They don’t need your help, which means they don’t get distracted by you being in there, and they go back to sleep.

Sometimes this really is all there is to it.

And if you’re curious about what sleep training even looks like or what your options are, start with the following post about the four most common sleep training methods.

Now before we move on, I said we’d talk about the pacifier, so let’s do it. I’m not going to dive into everything, because I do so fully in this post. So if you want to hear my entire pacifier schpiel, start here!

But if you’ve sleep trained and you’re little one still has a pacifier and they’re experiencing split nights (or early wakings or short naps), there’s a very good chance the pacifier is the culprit. Or at least a big culprit.

And it all comes back to the independent sleep skills. And while sure, many older babies and toddlers can replace the pacifier on their own, they still have to find it, turn it the right way, and pop it back in, and that can cause a more full waking rather than just rolling over and going back to sleep, likely not remembering they woke in the first place.

And again, after a 6ish hour sleep, that can cause a big old wake up until the baby or toddler is tired enough to fall back asleep again!

So one, if your little one experiences split nights fairly regularly and they still use a paci, it’s time to get rid of it once and for all. I don’t care if you’ve already sleep trained or not, the paci has to go. It’s just not full sleep training if the paci is still in play, so get rid of it. And if you have more questions about how, that’s all in this post.

And two, if they’re not sleep trained (even if they don’t have a paci), it’s time to sleep train! You could do everything else you read on the internet about solving split nights, but if your baby or toddler still needs help falling asleep, I’m just not at all confident that anything else will do the trick.

And our goal for you here is, of course, sleep. The best sleep. Long, consolidated, uninterrupted sleep, for the whole family.

Now, you might be thinking, “But so and so’s baby sleeps with a paci and sleeps all night long!” Or, “They still lay with their toddler every night and he doesn’t have split nights!”

I’m so happy for those families, because again, sleep for everyone is our goal. But every kiddo is different. What works for some just doesn’t work for others, so if your little one is struggling with split nights, independent sleep skills is where we have to start.

2. A Scheduling Issue

Like I said before, scheduling is probably the most common reason for split nights. Sometimes it could even be the lack of independent sleep skills plus a scheduling issue.

But if your little one is truly and fully sleep trained, their schedule is where I’d start. And when I say scheduling, I’m mainly talking about undertiredness – not overtiredness, like you may have assumed!

I actually have a whole blog post about overtiredness versus undertiredness, because I think overtiredness gets way more credit for messing up sleep than undertiredness does, when I think undertiredness often wreaks even more havoc on sleep! That’s all in this post, if you want to learn more.

But, thinking about undertiredness…

If a child is getting too much sleep during the day or they don’t have enough total wake time during the day, or are going to bed too early/not tired enough – they may simply not have enough sleep pressure to actually stay asleep for the entire night.

But here’s a snag I often find with split nights. You’ve now seen your baby or toddler awake for hours in the middle of the night, so you assume they’re now overtired, so you adjust their schedule the next day and plan for an early bedtime, but guess what will likely happen…

…another split night. Or if not that night, the next one.

So with a true split night, overtiredness usually isn’t the issue – it’s usually the opposite, undertiredness.

And here is where undertiredness might be happening…

It’s most often in wake windows, or when nap and bedtime are happening.

So let’s think about an 8 month old. If an 8-month-old is usually awake for about 2.5 hours between naps and bedtime, that’s likely not enough sleep pressure! We’re typically looking for 2.5 hours before nap one, 3 hours before nap two, and 3.5 hours before bedtime.

Or let’s think about a toddler. If your 2-year-old naps from 12-2:30 and goes to bed at 7, that might not be enough sleep pressure. Even if they’re falling asleep well, they may need closer to a 7:30 bedtime, maybe even 8 to fully sleep through the night.

It could even be that your 3.5 year old still naps during the day – even if just for 45 minutes. And maybe they’re still falling asleep well at bedtime, but if they’re experiencing split nights, maybe it’s actually time to drop the nap so we can boot that undertiredness.

I could give a million schedule examples, but it’s not going to be helpful to weed through here. What is helpful, however, is our free schedule guide!

But when it comes to schedule adustments, don’t hear me say, “You just need to push bedtime later.” Or just extend every wake window by 30 minutes. When we’re writing a sleep plan for a baby or toddler dealing with split nights, we want to look at the entire 24-hour schedule and make a thoughtful adjustment, which depends on your child’s age, their current schedule, and their overall sleep needs – we’re not just throwing a giant change at your child’s sleep.

Real Life Example

I worked with an 8 or 9-month-old several months ago and he was in daycare, taking super short naps, so mom and dad would give him a little 20-minute cat nap at home, let’s say from 5:40-6, and then they’d put him to bed at 7:15. He fell asleep quickly at bedtime, so they thought he was tired, but he was then a party animal in the middle of the night.

Before even working together, when we were on our initial discovery call, I told them to stop that bridge nap. At this age, I’d rather him have an early bedtime than that little nap and bedtime a bit after.

His split nights pretty much instantly went away, but he was still having night wakings. So when we actually started working together, we not only talked schedule, but for him, he was going to bed super drowsy. So even though they thought they already sleep trained, he wasn’t fully there.

So they moved his bottle to the start of the routine so he wasn’t getting heavy eyed, and they started putting him down fully awake. And within 2-3 days he was sleeping through the night!

Notice I didn’t say anything about daycare naps improving; those were hit or miss depending on the day. But his parents could control bedtime, and they could control how they put him to bed, and this made all the difference! So undertiredness was the split night culprit, and then actual independent sleep skills kicked the final night wakings out once and for all.

Less Common Reasons for Split Nights

So as a little review, the most common reasons for split nights are a lack of independent sleep skills and a scheduling issue, namely undertiredness.

But here are some other less common reasons for split nights:

• Overtiredness – it’s not my go to, but when I’m looking at a schedule I’ll certainly consider it. So for a 20-month-old who didn’t take a single nap and is now up at 2 a.m.? That’s overtiredness. Though they likely won’t be content, overtiredness is usually screaming and, “Please do anything to just get me back to sleep.”
• A major change in routine – maybe you’ve recently brought another baby home or you’ve moved. Those big changes could certainly throw your little one off.
• Similarly, a split night could be a sign of a sleep regression. If your baby just started crawling, or your toddler just started stringing words together into sentences, their little brain might be waking them up to practice this cool new skill! Here’s a post all about baby sleep regressions, and here’s one about toddler sleep regressions.
• And then I’d also add a sugar crash to this list. Some kiddos are going to be more sensitive to sugar than others. So a glass of milk before bed might be the reason for the split night, or the bowl of blackberries as a bedtime snack could be the reason.

Like I said, all of these are much less common than scheduling or sleep skills, but worth mentioning, especially if you have sleep trained and you feel confident about your child’s schedule.

Conclusion

In wrapping up, the goal here is to teach you all about split nights so that you can better understand why your child is experiencing them, as well as how to solve them! The goal is also to give you enough information that you can troubleshoot these split nights yourself.

But this is also where the grace comes in. If you’re reading this at 2 a.m. and thinking, “I don’t want to troublehsoot anything. I can’t – I just want someone to tell me what to do,” that’s exactly why Via Graces exists! So please remember that you don’t have to become a sleep expert just because your child isn’t sleeping well, that’s literally what we’re here for.

Let us take the guesswork out of those sleepless nights, and give you a step-by-step plan to finally get real sleep in your house again. If you’re curious to learn more about how we can support you, click here.

With Grace,

Lauren

Frequently Asked Questions About Split Nights

What is a split night?

A split night is when a baby or toddler wakes in the middle of the night and stays awake for an extended period of time — often an hour or two, maybe even three hours — before going back to sleep. During a split night, your child may be awake, alert, and even happy rather than upset or crying.

Why is my baby waking up for hours in the middle of the night?

One of the most common reasons for a prolonged middle-of-the-night wake-up is that your baby or toddler isn’t tired enough to sleep continuously through the night. This can happen when there is too much daytime sleep, wake windows are too short, or bedtime is earlier than your child needs. A lack of independent sleep skills can also contribute to prolonged night wakings.

Are split nights caused by being overtired or undertired?

Split nights are often caused by undertiredness, rather than overtiredness. If your child is getting more sleep during the day or isn’t awake long enough before bedtime, they may not have enough sleep pressure to stay asleep for the entire night. That said, every child is different, so it’s important to look at their entire 24-hour sleep schedule rather than assuming undertiredness is always the answer.

How do I fix a split night?

Start by looking at your child’s entire sleep schedule, including naps, wake windows, bedtime, and total sleep over 24 hours. You can use this free schedule guide to help. Your little one may need longer wake windows, you may need to adjust how much daytime sleep they’re getting, and/or shift bedtime later. If their schedule looks appropriate, consider whether they have the independent sleep skills needed to fall back asleep without help. If they still rely on you to help them get to sleep at night, or they still use a pacifier, those could also be causing the split night.

What if I can’t figure out why my child is having split nights?

Split nights can be challenging to troubleshoot because the solution depends on what’s happening across your child’s entire 24-hour schedule — not just what happens during the night. If you’ve tried adjusting your child’s schedule and you’re still stuck, or you’re not sure whether your child is undertired, struggling with independent sleep skills, or something else, a sleep coach can help! We are trained to spot what’s going on, and a personalized sleep plan can help you figure out what’s actually going on and make a plan that fits your child and your family. We’d love to help you.