Crib Party at 3 a.m. AKA Split Nights

You’ve probably heard me say before that we all wake up several times a night. Most of us don’t remember these wake ups because we seamlessly transition to the next sleep cycle. But sometimes our little ones wake up in the middle of the night and are really up…sometimes for hours.

If you’re the parent of a baby who’s dealing with fragmented sleep, you know exactly what I’m talking about. This isn’t the typical middle of the night “go in and comfort or feed baby for ten minutes and then he goes back to sleep” wakeup. This is a full-blown 3:00 a.m. party.

These wakes up are often referred to as split nights, and are characterized by a long stretch of sleep, followed by a waking of more than an hour where baby is happy and energetic, and then eventually back to sleep again.

This is a frustrating, but fairly common issue. Baby goes down at 7:30 for the night, wakes up at 3:00 a.m., hangs out and chats or rolls around for hour and a half, then goes back to sleep, not even thinking about how tired and groggy her poor parents will be the next day!

Let’s take a quick look at why this happens and what the solutions are.

There are two major drivers when it comes to sleep. There’s our circadian rhythm, which is our natural tendency to fall asleep when it’s dark and wake up when it’s light, and then there’s our homeostatic sleep drive, commonly known as sleep pressure, which builds up over the time we’re awake.

So ideally, over the course of the day, sleep pressure builds up, then at bedtime, when the pressure hits the sweet spot, baby puts her head down and goes to sleep. As that sleep pressure begins to subside, circadian rhythm takes over and baby stays asleep until morning.

In the case of a split nights, there are usually two main culprits. They may seem contradictory at first glance so let me explain.

Reason 1: Baby is going to bed too late

If your baby is going to bed too late and too much sleep pressure has built up, the brain has this instinctive response that says, “Hey, you’re tired but you’re not sleeping. There must be some danger around, so we better increase cortisol production to help you survive”.

Cortisol is a stimulating hormone which can make it really hard for a baby or child to fall asleep at bedtime. It can also trigger a full wake up at the end of a sleep cycle, which commonly happens around 2 or 3 in the morning. Ugh.

The solution:

Treat this like any other nighttime wake up, reassure baby that it’s still sleep time, provide comfort and allow her to go back to sleep on her own.

To avoid this from happening, watch your child’s awake window closely to ensure they are not going from the tired to wired state. Move bedtime earlier by 15 minutes every couple of days until you get to their ideal bedtime.  

Reason #2: Baby is going to bed too early

The second reason for split nights is baby going to bed too early. If your baby is taking great naps and going to bed early, it’s possible that there’s not enough sleep drive built up to keep baby sleeping until their circadian rhythm takes over and helps them sleep through the rest of the night, so they wake up. And now that there isn’t as much sleep pressure, and their circadian rhythm doesn’t have the horsepower to get them to sleep on their own, suddenly they’re up and active for an hour (or three!) while that sleep pressure builds back up.

The solution:

This one can be a little trickier to fix. And if you have worked with me, you know I’m all about early bedtimes. Too little sleep is a much bigger problem than too much. But if your baby’s experiencing this kind of split-night, it’s worth looking at their schedule and doing some fine tuning to ensure that you’re hitting the optimum sleep pressure right at the same time that baby’s going to bed for the night.

If your child had a day of crappy naps and is clearly exhausted and not going to make to her normal bedtime, definitely put her down early. However, try to avoid putting baby to bed super early more than one or two nights in a row. We want to prevent overtiredness but we also don’t want them in the crib at night for more time than they’re actually capable of sleeping. So, if your baby had a tough day and didn’t nap well, it’s fine to get her to bed a little early, since that sleep pressure is likely already built up, but try to get her back onto the regular schedule starting the next morning, including her wake-up time.

I want to also note that split nights can happen during developmental leaps and milestones. When babies are learning new things like crawling, standing or walking, they like to practice until they master their new skills…yes, even if it’s in the middle of the night. If you suspect this is the reason for your baby’s spilt night, you don’t need to do anything. Just let them do their thing! Their sleep should go back to normal within about a week, or as soon as your little one fully acquires their new skill.

Conclusion:

I know that this can all start to sound like a complex math equation, and in some ways, it is a bit of a science, but the more you understand the nuances and know where to make those minor adjustments, the better your baby will sleep, and the less they’ll run into these regressions, setbacks, and interruptions.

I would also like to remind you that this is not likely to be an overnight fix. Once baby has gotten into this habit, getting them out of it can take some time. So be patient and consistent and before you know it, your baby and you will both be enjoying full nights of deep, restful sleep.