By Angelica Videla — Certified Baby and Toddler Sleep Consultant, London | Supporting families across the UK, Europe, US, and Australia
Quick Answer
If your baby is awake for long stretches in the middle of the night, it's usually a sign that their daytime sleep and wake windows are out of balance. Most commonly, it's either too much daytime sleep or overtiredness building through the day. With the right adjustments, this can be resolved gently without leaving your baby to cry.
Why this is happening
I see this quite a lot with families I work with 🤍
When a baby wakes and stays awake for 1–2 hours (often called a “split night”), it's rarely random. It usually means their body isn't ready to stay asleep at that point in the night.
There are two main patterns behind this:
Too much daytime sleep
If your baby is getting more daytime sleep than they need, that sleep pressure isn't strong enough to carry through the night. So instead of sleeping deeply, they wake and are fully alert.
Overtiredness building up
This sounds counterintuitive, but being too tired can also cause this. When a baby is overtired, their body produces more cortisol, which can lead to restless nights and long wake periods.
In both cases, the issue isn't the night itself — it's how the day is set up.
What's making it worse
- Trying to add more daytime sleep to "fix" nights
- Letting naps run too long
- Late bedtimes
- Inconsistent nap timing day to day
- Focusing only on resettling at night without adjusting the day
What actually helps
The key is gently rebalancing the full day so your baby is both tired enough and not overtired by bedtime.
This usually involves:
- Adjusting total daytime sleep
- Fine-tuning wake windows
- Bringing consistency to naps and bedtime
- Looking at how your baby falls asleep at bedtime
Once the day is set up correctly, those long night wakes usually shorten and then disappear.
How this might look in real life
Long periods of nighttime wakefulness are very draining. Here is how it usually looks.
- Baby wakes in the middle of the night and is wide awake for over an hour
- They do not seem upset — they babble, roll around, or practise new skills
- You try everything to resettle but baby is simply not tired enough to fall back asleep
- This tends to happen between midnight and 4am
- The rest of the night and naps may be completely fine