Split night
Also called split nights, split-night
A split night is when a baby wakes in the middle of the night and stays wide awake for a long time, often one to three hours, before sleeping again. The baby is usually alert and playful rather than upset.
How it's said
Please tell me someone has found out the reason for the absolute nightmare that is split nights.
I'm a sleep consultant, and split nights can be tricky!
...we've had a split night almost every night, with my 7MO awake for around an hour, usually at some point between 3 and 5 AM.
Who says it
Not to be confused with
- A false start is a full wake within the first hour or so after bedtime. A split night comes later, a long, wide-awake stretch in the middle of the night.
Where it came from
Sleep coaches use the word for a long, wide-awake stretch in the night, most often between 8 and 24 months.
The pattern echoes an older one. Historian Roger Ekirch has argued that before the Industrial Revolution, adults often slept in two parts, a first sleep and a second sleep, with time awake between.
Cutiko logs when your baby settles and wakes during the night. Read how it works