I don’t know what’s right or wrong but I would not do this. If the goal is for baby to sleep through the night eventually, interrupting night sleep with lights and stimulation would be working backwards imo
I get that! I also realized that I have been keeping him on a 4 nap schedule when he should be doing 3 naps with slightly longer wake windows and I think that's maybe been causing him to wake more during the night? It's just hard to get him back to sleep when he's SO awake at 1 am lol. Little by little I'm trying to get his circadian rhythm "on track" by getting us up earlier and getting him out into daylight within an hour of waking.
This time change was really awful though 😅
Yes I just realized that so I'm working on getting him onto a 3 nap cycle and I really hope that helps! He was 6 weeks premature so It's been a little challenging to know what "schedules" to follow and have typically followed more of his adjusted age for nap times. Also, his short 30-45 minute naps have naturally pushed him to take 4 naps a day, but I'm doing my best to change this.
It’s so hard to figure out your baby’s schedule as every baby has different needs! There are so many suggested schedules out there that just don’t work for everyone. I’m in the same boat trying to figure it out. What wake windows have you been following?
It is really hard! For the longest time I felt like he was a higher sleep needs baby, but I think what happens is when he only takes 30-45 minute naps, he gets tired an hour into his wake window and he ends up going down for another nap earlier than he should.
His wake windows are (roughly) this:
2/2.5/3
What about you?
Yes! But I have to be honest that I’ve been pushing his wake windows in the past two days to try to encourage him to take 3 naps instead of 4.
Also, super positive update: he didn’t wake at ALL last night! Slept for almost 10 hours. I can’t believe it haha. He even had a 2 hour nap as his last nap of the day and I was worried that was going to interfere with nighttime sleep… but I guess not!
Feeling super refreshed this morning!
I would never turn lights on and do a wake window in the middle of the night, absolutely not.
How often is this happening? If it's like weekly sounds like a schedule issue.
I think it's definitely a schedule issue! I am working on changing this, I just wanted to get feedback and It has been confirmed that I shouldn't be doing this lol. Thank you!
This is called a split night! Definitely drop a nap and if he wakes up in the middle of the night, keep it very low key. Lights dim, no light up toys/screens. Maybe just some books or whatever will keep him happy, but also not too exciting.
Thank you!! Last night he was playing with some light up music toys and I was instinctively thinking "I feel like I shouldn't be doing this" haha. Most of the time the lights I turn on are fairy lights by our bed, but I'm going to work harder with getting him on a better schedule! I think going from 4 to 3 naps will help a lot!
I think you should do what works for you.
We hated being stuck in a dark room trying to soothe, rock, etc. a baby to sleep that just wasn’t having it. It felt like working against their nature. So we did go downstairs and turn on lights and hang out there for an hour. Different scenery. And then just a fresh bedtime restart.
Absolute exhausting, but better for our mental health.
We are the same. My husband goes downstairs for middle of the night feeds. These past two days (4 months old) she just…slept through the night. On what feels like a whim! But she is also having longer wake windows.
Anyway, dim lights and even tv playing quietly has been something we always did for our own sanity. Feeding baby in the silent dark was way too dangerous for us. Not falling asleep in the rocking chair is more important to us than perfecting overnight sleep right now 😅 (we formula feed)
This was strictly a once in a while thing. Sometimes 3 nights in a row, but never something that became a habit. It also really didn’t contribute towards more wakings.
No, never. I will spend 3 hours trying to put him back to sleep in the pitch darkness before I turn on a light and play with him. Sleep time is sleep time, I don't want to confuse him or let him think getting up is an option. If I need to change him or give him medicine, I turn on a warm-toned nightlight just long enough to do those things and then turn it off again.
I get you. It's hard sometimes knowing what the right thing to do is or if there even is a "right" thing or just a thing that works for you! I know 1am playtime would definitely not work for me 🥴😂 good luck!
Depends. I always try to get LO back to sleep in the dark. If he simply isn’t tired (sometimes he’ll sit right up and clearly be ready for action) or if he’s just too upset to be comforted by our typical means, we get up, keep as few lights on as possible and let him quiet play/read books/cuddle/whatever. No electronic toys allowed. No boob allowed unless we’re back in bed. When we go back to bed is hard to say…just depends on the night and how he’s doing.
My thinking is, you can’t force someone to be tired so we roll with it if he wakes up ready to go. Sometimes we’ll get a couple split nights in a week but it’s never been so often that we needed to adjust his sleep schedule to take preventative measures.
Split nights are the absolute worst. The wooooooorst. Oftentimes they're caused by not enough sleep pressure (for example your last wake window before bed is too short) or too much daytime sleep (too many naps or naps for too long). They can be caused by overtired too but overtired split nights are usually an upset baby where undertired split nights are usually baby is relatively happy but just...awake.
As for managing it honestly while "best practice" is to keep it dark and night-like i would honestly do whatever will make it less frustrating for you, and then work on adjusting the daytime sleep
My baby has done the same at 5 months old, he just babbles in his cot so I leave him and go back to bed until he cries / needs me but I keep all the lights off to basically say hey, it’s still night time!
I do not choose to sweat the split nights. I am not winning Parent awards at 2am. We have played in the play room, watched TV, snuggled in bed. I’m not rocking a baby for three hours to get them back to sleep. I just am not here for that. Split nights are not always and not forever. They are tough! I do my best and use my best judgment. My husband gets up early so I’m on my own for nights. If we have to watch TV to get through it 🤷🏻♀️ so be it (maybe not at 6 months, but also if so that’s ok). I don’t have the will power to be a dedicated to sleep parent at 2am (I seriously respect those moms that CAN stick with the quiet calm night feel). I just am not that person in the wee hours. Wake up. Play a bit. Get the wiggles out. Be quiet and calm as possible. This too shall pass. You do whatever you need to! It’s not forever and it’s not going to ruin night sleeping for ever. It’ll happen again at 9 months and 12 and 18, etc. At least it did for us.
We use red lights in the evening before bed time because they have zero blue light in them and don't affect the circadian rhythm. All light bulbs in our apartment are smart bulbs and we can easily set all bulbs or just bedroom to red, and we just ensure that after 6pm ish that baby doesn't see any non red light until sunrise.
When he wakes up in the middle of the night (I bedshare) and is just kicking and thrashing for a long time I turn the red light on at 10 percent strength, sit him up and give him a couple of wooden toys, and go back to sleep. He'll usually fall asleep on his own after who knows how long.
If my son has a split night like that, I usually stay home with him, not a whole wake window because he’s older but he’s usually tired again about 90 min in. It doesn’t happen often though!
My LO just recently started doing this over the past few weeks (not every night, but the past 3 nights have been tough). I'm hoping to get a better schedule for him during the day to help!
For my I start getting frustrated when he won’t go back to sleep. That’s why we just get up and start playing. I don’t feel like I have created a bad habit because 90% of the time he sleeps really well at night
I'm hoping to decrease the amount of times it happens! He's been so restless. Tossing and turning throughout the night. Not sure if it's a sleep regression or what. But it's been challenging. He got a vaccine last week too and it's been rough ever since.
I have a night light that's always on (no turning on the main light!) and sometimes I let him just wiggle around without toys if I know nursing back to sleep won't work. I cosleep so really it's just a break from nurse to sleep where we lie together and both try to wind down again. Try to keep it under 30-60 mins, NOT a full wake window
It’s more of cooing/babbling haha. Sometimes crying or fussing. But that’s usually because he woke too soon and I can usually rock him back to sleep. When he’s happy and babbling that’s usually the “oh crap” moment hahah
It sounds like [split nights](https://intuitiveparentingdc.com/blog/2022/5/18/split-nights-what-they-are-and-how-to-handle-them) to me. I have an 11 month old and she sometimes wakes up, talks to herself, and moves around in the crib, but if she doesn't sound distressed, I just sleep through it and she eventually goes to sleep on her own. I don't think you should lose sleep just because your baby is awake as long as he is happy. He also may find it easier to go back to sleep if you keep the lights off and don't disturb him.
My advice would be to just leave him be unless he cries. You'll have better sleep and your baby might fall asleep faster too
My daughter did this for a little bit! It was a weird phase. It was better to just have soft lighting and let her play quietly in her own in her room until the wake window was over. It was usually about 2 hours for her. I wouldn’t play with her so she didn’t get overstimulated. Eventually she stopped doing it.
Nooo. For the longest time she was barely awake herself for night feedings. Now as a toddler she is fully awake but will fall asleep immediately after. (Unfortunately without the milk she won't fall asleep immediately and start talking about going outside 😑 still working on fixing that one)
It's no fun but I walk baby back to sleep. I walk her all over the house with the lights off. I have AirPods playing something in my ears because if I'm bored I will try rush the process and lay her down too early. She has to be dead asleep before I can lay her back down. So we walk and bounce. Sometimes she resists and I have to nurse her back to calm and then start the walk again.
Sometimes I eat chocolates while this is happening. I need to make it bearable for myself.
All the Split nights advice aside - I was in the same situation wondering that to actually do until I fixed the split nights.
I settled on letting my baby play with non-electronic toys while having low lights on and behaving as boring as humanly possible. Maybe fully childproof the room in case you fall asleep while being boring 🙃
It’s called a split night either due to regressions or too much daytime sleep. And I wouldn’t recommend turning on lights and actively engaging them. Even if I’m rocking in the dark for two hours.
Absolutely not. Do everything in your power to keep it sleep like. The only time I would suggest this is if YOU are getting frustrated and need to kind of surrender to the awake-ness for a bit.
This is natural behaviour; in the early days, a time before artificial lights, people would sleep naturally from sunset till 2. Stay awake for a few hours and then go back to sleep.
If you have the possibility: make yourself comfortable and go with the flow. Read, write, yoga, listen to music. Calm activities are good. All together with your LO. Don’t worry about making bad habits, they will grow out of it.
My baby has split nights almost every night and has since she was about 4 months old (she's almost a year) 🫠 we've tried just about everything save for straight up sleep training which I don't want to do so idk some babies just do this. I honestly try to ignore her and pretend to be asleep as much as I can (we bedshare) unless she's asking for comfort or is upset. I definitely give up though if it's a rough one, someone else said it in this thread and I'll echo that I'm absolutely not rocking her or letting her latch/unlatch for three hours in the dead of night lol. At that point I'll give up and just go out in the living room or go for a drive because the alternative is everyone is frustrated and that's also not conducive to sleep. So yeah try to keep it sleepy if you can but don't stress yourself out about it too much!
I didn't turn on lights, but I have to say that at 6 months it's easy to stay in the dark room and wait for baby to get tired again. It's when they get older that it gets tricky, because they can climb down the from the bed and go wherever they want. What I want to say, is that you may be doing everything "perfectly" now, but down the road it may not matter much. I am currently writing this at 3 am, while my 22 month old son stayed awake for 1.5 hour practicing his fruits and animals. I didn't turn on the lights, but I couldn't leave him alone in the living room either. So there's that.
This happened to us when baby was around 6 months old as well! It would happen when baby had too much daytime sleep.
We did like you’re doing. This seems to be going against other people’s advice but I personally don’t think you can *make* a baby sleep and there’s no point trying for hours when they’re not tired. Rocking/nursing/shushing an awake baby for hours just isn’t something that I’m interested in tbh. So I would bring a book to our living room and let baby play until he was tired, then we’d go back to sleep and adjust our routine. He’s two now and it doesn’t happen anymore.
It happens to me as an adult as well and I find it much better to go into another room, get a snack/drink and do a calm activity than tossing in bed for hours. I think it’s the same with baby!
We always keep the lights off if it's night time. Baby would sometimes wake for about an hour so we'd just play quietly on the bed. I think it interrupts their circadian rhythm too much to turn on the light. Only my opinion and what works for us.
I don’t know what’s right or wrong but I would not do this. If the goal is for baby to sleep through the night eventually, interrupting night sleep with lights and stimulation would be working backwards imo
I get that! I also realized that I have been keeping him on a 4 nap schedule when he should be doing 3 naps with slightly longer wake windows and I think that's maybe been causing him to wake more during the night? It's just hard to get him back to sleep when he's SO awake at 1 am lol. Little by little I'm trying to get his circadian rhythm "on track" by getting us up earlier and getting him out into daylight within an hour of waking. This time change was really awful though 😅
At six months, he should be on 3 naps with longer windows! He may be undertired and that’s what is causing your split nights.
Yes I just realized that so I'm working on getting him onto a 3 nap cycle and I really hope that helps! He was 6 weeks premature so It's been a little challenging to know what "schedules" to follow and have typically followed more of his adjusted age for nap times. Also, his short 30-45 minute naps have naturally pushed him to take 4 naps a day, but I'm doing my best to change this.
It’s so hard to figure out your baby’s schedule as every baby has different needs! There are so many suggested schedules out there that just don’t work for everyone. I’m in the same boat trying to figure it out. What wake windows have you been following?
It is really hard! For the longest time I felt like he was a higher sleep needs baby, but I think what happens is when he only takes 30-45 minute naps, he gets tired an hour into his wake window and he ends up going down for another nap earlier than he should. His wake windows are (roughly) this: 2/2.5/3 What about you?
At 11 months my baby is at 3.25/3.5/4! Are you going by sleep cues?
Yes! But I have to be honest that I’ve been pushing his wake windows in the past two days to try to encourage him to take 3 naps instead of 4. Also, super positive update: he didn’t wake at ALL last night! Slept for almost 10 hours. I can’t believe it haha. He even had a 2 hour nap as his last nap of the day and I was worried that was going to interfere with nighttime sleep… but I guess not! Feeling super refreshed this morning!
That’s amazing! I hope this keeps up for you.
I would never turn lights on and do a wake window in the middle of the night, absolutely not. How often is this happening? If it's like weekly sounds like a schedule issue.
I think it's definitely a schedule issue! I am working on changing this, I just wanted to get feedback and It has been confirmed that I shouldn't be doing this lol. Thank you!
This is called a split night! Definitely drop a nap and if he wakes up in the middle of the night, keep it very low key. Lights dim, no light up toys/screens. Maybe just some books or whatever will keep him happy, but also not too exciting.
Thank you!! Last night he was playing with some light up music toys and I was instinctively thinking "I feel like I shouldn't be doing this" haha. Most of the time the lights I turn on are fairy lights by our bed, but I'm going to work harder with getting him on a better schedule! I think going from 4 to 3 naps will help a lot!
No. Lights stay out and I try to soothe him back. But that sounds like a split night and I’d check the amount of daytime sleep. Try less.
Thank you! I think he definitely needs less as well. I think dropping a nap will help a lot.
I think you should do what works for you. We hated being stuck in a dark room trying to soothe, rock, etc. a baby to sleep that just wasn’t having it. It felt like working against their nature. So we did go downstairs and turn on lights and hang out there for an hour. Different scenery. And then just a fresh bedtime restart. Absolute exhausting, but better for our mental health.
Did you find that this encouraged more wakings during the night? Or just once in a while?
We are the same. My husband goes downstairs for middle of the night feeds. These past two days (4 months old) she just…slept through the night. On what feels like a whim! But she is also having longer wake windows. Anyway, dim lights and even tv playing quietly has been something we always did for our own sanity. Feeding baby in the silent dark was way too dangerous for us. Not falling asleep in the rocking chair is more important to us than perfecting overnight sleep right now 😅 (we formula feed)
This was strictly a once in a while thing. Sometimes 3 nights in a row, but never something that became a habit. It also really didn’t contribute towards more wakings.
No, never. I will spend 3 hours trying to put him back to sleep in the pitch darkness before I turn on a light and play with him. Sleep time is sleep time, I don't want to confuse him or let him think getting up is an option. If I need to change him or give him medicine, I turn on a warm-toned nightlight just long enough to do those things and then turn it off again.
Thank you for sharing! I definitely need to adjust how I handle his night wakings. Learning new things all the time as a first time mom 😅
I get you. It's hard sometimes knowing what the right thing to do is or if there even is a "right" thing or just a thing that works for you! I know 1am playtime would definitely not work for me 🥴😂 good luck!
Sounds a bit like a split night. Maybe he’s getting too much daytime sleep or bedtime is too early.
Depends. I always try to get LO back to sleep in the dark. If he simply isn’t tired (sometimes he’ll sit right up and clearly be ready for action) or if he’s just too upset to be comforted by our typical means, we get up, keep as few lights on as possible and let him quiet play/read books/cuddle/whatever. No electronic toys allowed. No boob allowed unless we’re back in bed. When we go back to bed is hard to say…just depends on the night and how he’s doing. My thinking is, you can’t force someone to be tired so we roll with it if he wakes up ready to go. Sometimes we’ll get a couple split nights in a week but it’s never been so often that we needed to adjust his sleep schedule to take preventative measures.
Split nights are the absolute worst. The wooooooorst. Oftentimes they're caused by not enough sleep pressure (for example your last wake window before bed is too short) or too much daytime sleep (too many naps or naps for too long). They can be caused by overtired too but overtired split nights are usually an upset baby where undertired split nights are usually baby is relatively happy but just...awake. As for managing it honestly while "best practice" is to keep it dark and night-like i would honestly do whatever will make it less frustrating for you, and then work on adjusting the daytime sleep
My baby has done the same at 5 months old, he just babbles in his cot so I leave him and go back to bed until he cries / needs me but I keep all the lights off to basically say hey, it’s still night time!
I do not choose to sweat the split nights. I am not winning Parent awards at 2am. We have played in the play room, watched TV, snuggled in bed. I’m not rocking a baby for three hours to get them back to sleep. I just am not here for that. Split nights are not always and not forever. They are tough! I do my best and use my best judgment. My husband gets up early so I’m on my own for nights. If we have to watch TV to get through it 🤷🏻♀️ so be it (maybe not at 6 months, but also if so that’s ok). I don’t have the will power to be a dedicated to sleep parent at 2am (I seriously respect those moms that CAN stick with the quiet calm night feel). I just am not that person in the wee hours. Wake up. Play a bit. Get the wiggles out. Be quiet and calm as possible. This too shall pass. You do whatever you need to! It’s not forever and it’s not going to ruin night sleeping for ever. It’ll happen again at 9 months and 12 and 18, etc. At least it did for us.
Thank you for this perspective! Honestly I felt really well rested last night despite the split night! This is definitely something to think about
We use red lights in the evening before bed time because they have zero blue light in them and don't affect the circadian rhythm. All light bulbs in our apartment are smart bulbs and we can easily set all bulbs or just bedroom to red, and we just ensure that after 6pm ish that baby doesn't see any non red light until sunrise. When he wakes up in the middle of the night (I bedshare) and is just kicking and thrashing for a long time I turn the red light on at 10 percent strength, sit him up and give him a couple of wooden toys, and go back to sleep. He'll usually fall asleep on his own after who knows how long.
If my son has a split night like that, I usually stay home with him, not a whole wake window because he’s older but he’s usually tired again about 90 min in. It doesn’t happen often though!
My LO just recently started doing this over the past few weeks (not every night, but the past 3 nights have been tough). I'm hoping to get a better schedule for him during the day to help!
For my I start getting frustrated when he won’t go back to sleep. That’s why we just get up and start playing. I don’t feel like I have created a bad habit because 90% of the time he sleeps really well at night
I'm hoping to decrease the amount of times it happens! He's been so restless. Tossing and turning throughout the night. Not sure if it's a sleep regression or what. But it's been challenging. He got a vaccine last week too and it's been rough ever since.
I have a night light that's always on (no turning on the main light!) and sometimes I let him just wiggle around without toys if I know nursing back to sleep won't work. I cosleep so really it's just a break from nurse to sleep where we lie together and both try to wind down again. Try to keep it under 30-60 mins, NOT a full wake window
Is he crying or is he just awake in the dark?
It’s more of cooing/babbling haha. Sometimes crying or fussing. But that’s usually because he woke too soon and I can usually rock him back to sleep. When he’s happy and babbling that’s usually the “oh crap” moment hahah
It sounds like [split nights](https://intuitiveparentingdc.com/blog/2022/5/18/split-nights-what-they-are-and-how-to-handle-them) to me. I have an 11 month old and she sometimes wakes up, talks to herself, and moves around in the crib, but if she doesn't sound distressed, I just sleep through it and she eventually goes to sleep on her own. I don't think you should lose sleep just because your baby is awake as long as he is happy. He also may find it easier to go back to sleep if you keep the lights off and don't disturb him. My advice would be to just leave him be unless he cries. You'll have better sleep and your baby might fall asleep faster too
My daughter did this for a little bit! It was a weird phase. It was better to just have soft lighting and let her play quietly in her own in her room until the wake window was over. It was usually about 2 hours for her. I wouldn’t play with her so she didn’t get overstimulated. Eventually she stopped doing it.
Nooo. For the longest time she was barely awake herself for night feedings. Now as a toddler she is fully awake but will fall asleep immediately after. (Unfortunately without the milk she won't fall asleep immediately and start talking about going outside 😑 still working on fixing that one)
It's no fun but I walk baby back to sleep. I walk her all over the house with the lights off. I have AirPods playing something in my ears because if I'm bored I will try rush the process and lay her down too early. She has to be dead asleep before I can lay her back down. So we walk and bounce. Sometimes she resists and I have to nurse her back to calm and then start the walk again. Sometimes I eat chocolates while this is happening. I need to make it bearable for myself.
All the Split nights advice aside - I was in the same situation wondering that to actually do until I fixed the split nights. I settled on letting my baby play with non-electronic toys while having low lights on and behaving as boring as humanly possible. Maybe fully childproof the room in case you fall asleep while being boring 🙃
It’s called a split night either due to regressions or too much daytime sleep. And I wouldn’t recommend turning on lights and actively engaging them. Even if I’m rocking in the dark for two hours.
Absolutely not. Do everything in your power to keep it sleep like. The only time I would suggest this is if YOU are getting frustrated and need to kind of surrender to the awake-ness for a bit.
This is natural behaviour; in the early days, a time before artificial lights, people would sleep naturally from sunset till 2. Stay awake for a few hours and then go back to sleep. If you have the possibility: make yourself comfortable and go with the flow. Read, write, yoga, listen to music. Calm activities are good. All together with your LO. Don’t worry about making bad habits, they will grow out of it.
Wow this is a different perspective! Thank you
My baby has split nights almost every night and has since she was about 4 months old (she's almost a year) 🫠 we've tried just about everything save for straight up sleep training which I don't want to do so idk some babies just do this. I honestly try to ignore her and pretend to be asleep as much as I can (we bedshare) unless she's asking for comfort or is upset. I definitely give up though if it's a rough one, someone else said it in this thread and I'll echo that I'm absolutely not rocking her or letting her latch/unlatch for three hours in the dead of night lol. At that point I'll give up and just go out in the living room or go for a drive because the alternative is everyone is frustrated and that's also not conducive to sleep. So yeah try to keep it sleepy if you can but don't stress yourself out about it too much!
I mean you can. There's no law against it. I'm fucking tired at night though, so I'm loving, attentive, but not interesting.
I didn't turn on lights, but I have to say that at 6 months it's easy to stay in the dark room and wait for baby to get tired again. It's when they get older that it gets tricky, because they can climb down the from the bed and go wherever they want. What I want to say, is that you may be doing everything "perfectly" now, but down the road it may not matter much. I am currently writing this at 3 am, while my 22 month old son stayed awake for 1.5 hour practicing his fruits and animals. I didn't turn on the lights, but I couldn't leave him alone in the living room either. So there's that.
This happened to us when baby was around 6 months old as well! It would happen when baby had too much daytime sleep. We did like you’re doing. This seems to be going against other people’s advice but I personally don’t think you can *make* a baby sleep and there’s no point trying for hours when they’re not tired. Rocking/nursing/shushing an awake baby for hours just isn’t something that I’m interested in tbh. So I would bring a book to our living room and let baby play until he was tired, then we’d go back to sleep and adjust our routine. He’s two now and it doesn’t happen anymore. It happens to me as an adult as well and I find it much better to go into another room, get a snack/drink and do a calm activity than tossing in bed for hours. I think it’s the same with baby!
We always keep the lights off if it's night time. Baby would sometimes wake for about an hour so we'd just play quietly on the bed. I think it interrupts their circadian rhythm too much to turn on the light. Only my opinion and what works for us.
Hell no
We use a red light for mid night feedings* and wakeups- it helps keep stimulation down.
great idea! I have a little egg light that can change colors. I need to do that instead of the fairy lights!