It's actually natural to wake up once in the night. It always happens in experiments where people don't have clocks and rely on the sun to know when to go to sleep. Just occupy yourself for an hour and go back to sleep.

I started experiencing sleep problems (falling asleep & wakings) when I had sustained low-carb paleo for a while. Now that I have reintroduced carbs, my sleep has improved. I also tried several differnt supplements that had claims of "calming", "relaxing" or improving sleep. Melatonin is good, I recommend taking one 3 mg that's time releasing, and I personally also take sublingual 1-2 spray/dropper to help me intially fall asleep (so I'm at total of 5 mg melatonin / night). Don't overdo melatonin, it might work against you. If you wan't to experiment with other supplements, I personally have slept the best ever since I tried GABA, Valerian Root and melatonin together. Natural Calm and a Zinc tablet has also been a part of my evening supplements. But like I said, I have also increased carbs recently from low to moderate, which also may have contributed to better sleep.

Could be related to increased stress. Increased stress increases cortisol levels. Cortisol, in circadian rhythm, decreases at night and starts to rise early in the morning causing you to wake up. If your cortisol levels are not getting as low as they used to at night, that means that the early morning upturn in cortisol production will cause your wakeup-level to be reached sooner, at 2AM, 3AM, whenever your cortisol says it's time to get up.

Our cortisol levels increase as we get older.

Ed

Check out Robb Wolf's podcast near March 15, question #2 is about waking at 3am every day. I forget the answer but it had to do with having too few carbs.

I also had trouble sleeping during my adjustment period. It took a few months to even out. And yes, I think I was LC during that time, whereas now I'm not as strict on the natural carbs.

I don't know how long ago it was that your son started sleeping through the night, but if you're still breastfeeding, or even after, your hormones could be all over the map and that will definitely screw up sleep. My daughter is 21 months old and I'm still having issues occasionally. This could be the case especially if you've gone back on a hormonal birth control.

Good luck to you! My sense is that it may just take a little time to smooth out, but check in with those hormones.

Is this a problem for you? Are you tired during the day?

As far as I have ever heard (I've done some reading about circadian rythm, human sleep patterns, the sleep of humans who live outdoors with no artificial light, etc) it's perfectly normal to wake up a few times during your night's sleep, and even be wide-awake for several hours in the middle.

I'll also note that when I was in ketosis, I slept very lightly and woke more often; and when I eat a lot of carbs, I sleep like a log. So my first suggestion to you is to up the carbs, especially in the evening.

Bi-phasic and even poly-phasic is completely normal. The worst thing you can do is worry about it. Just get up, potter around for half an hour, depending on what you like to do. But absolutely no blue light (lights, computers, electronics etc.). Candle or firelight is ok. I listen to the radio (Radio National here in Australia, similar to PBS or BBC world service).