Urgent help - Is a 3-7-7-3 split sleeper birth possible or are only 3-7-3-7 allowed?

Thank you to everyone who replied. I realized after writing the post that it was kind of dumb of me to post a question like that at the last minute, but I had confused myself before I was about to leave and started looking at everything again. I was also a bit tired too.

Anyways, I wanted to give an update to help anyone here who may or may not be confused about this same issue.

The answer to my question is that yes, 3-7-7-3 splits are just as good as 3-7-3-7 or 7-3-7-3 splits. My PeopleNet tablet never put me in violation during any of this, thus confirming that what I did was legal (my tablet will alert me right away if I'm in HOS violation).

I'll explain my confusion a bit more, that I tried to explain last night, I hope this doesn't confuse everybody more.

When you run a 7-3 split, let's say you do the 7 hour split first. That means that while you can take the second part of your break for longer than 3 hours, the 3 hours is what's important. You can take 4 or 5 or 6 hours and it doesn't help or hurt you, because it's not like you can do 6-4 (or vice versa) or 5-5 splits.

So that's where my confusion was coming in because it's traditionally explained that you either run 3-7 or 7-3 split, or if you keep on running splits for days on end than they will be 3-7-3-7 or 7-3-7-3, running in a nice clean pattern like that (obviously the splits rarely work out to match one another to the minute, but you get my point).

Last night I had taken (rounded to the nearest whole number to make it simple) a 10 hour break, a 3 hour sleeper birth break, a 7 hour sleeper birth break and when I made my post I was about to finish up another 7 hour break. So for my 7 hour break that I was about to finish, I knew I was good to run out whatever hours I had left but I was unsure as to whether or not once I did run out whatever hours I had left after completing the second 7 hour sleeper birth break (so the one in bold 3-7-7-3 ) if I would have to wait 7 more hours to recap hours, or wait 3 more hours to recap more hours. If I had to wait an additional 7 hours (so a 3-7-7-7 split sleeper) then I wouldn't have been able to make my delivery on time. If I could recap hours after being in sleeper birth for just 3 more hours instead of 7 (so 3-7-7-3) then I could make my delivery on time.

Because I was thinking that since I was running a 3-7-7-3 split sleeper birth, I was thinking that maybe the second 7 hour sleeper birth period (so the one in bold 3-7-7-3) really only counted (as far as gaining recap hours) as a 3 hour break. Kind of like what I just said where if you take the 7 hour break first, then your second break can be 4 or 5 or 6 hours but it's only the 3 hour break that matters.

Hopefully you guys can see where my logic was coming from with that confusion?

So this is how they (my splits) worked out, I'll put exact time stamps on the times but realize when I say "10 hour break" or "3 hour break" or "7 hour break" I am just rounding to the nearest whole number to make things simple. And also realize that I'm only putting when I went into sleeper birth and when I went back on duty. I obviously took breaks and did various On Duty tasks in between, including driving. I'm not going to include all of that because it's going to get confusing. I'm only making the point that you can do a 3-7-7-3 split sleeper birth and that it doesn't have to be a "traditional" 3-7-3-7 or a 7-3-7-3 split sleeper birth.

So here's what my logs looked like and accordingly to my PeopleNet tablet it was 100% legal:

June 16

A. Normal 10 hour break

SB - 0130
On Duty - 1147
Duration - 10 hours and 17 minutes

B. 3-7-7-3

SB - 1810
On Duty - 2041
Duration - 2 hours 31 minutes

June 17

C. 3-7-7-3

SB - 0156
On Duty - 1035
Duration - 8 hours 39 minutes

D. 3-7-7-3

SB - 1332
On Duty - 2057
Duration - 7 hours and 25 minutes

June 18

E. 3-7-7-3

SB - 0438
On Duty - 0832
Duration - 3 hours and 54 minutes

F. Normal 10 hour break

SB - 1603
On Duty - Will be well after 0203 tomorrow morning on June 19 so I'll complete a normal 10 hour break

So hopefully this wasn't too confusing to everybody. The summary is that a 3-7-7-3 split sleeper birth is just as good as a 3-7-3-7 and a 7-3-7-3. To the person who mentioned "abusing" split sleeper births, they aren't there to be abused. You can run splits 365 days out the year. The DOT gives us splits for our benefits. I already thought the new HOS rules were extremely fair, flexible and accomadating but now that I know you can also do a 3-7-7-3 split sleeper, I'm even more impressed by the rules.

To Wasted Time I know you mentioned it was pointless to run splits like I was doing if I was hoping to gain "extra time" (which I was not), but I was running splits the way I was doing to avoid backups/delays/rush hours and to run at the most efficient times possible in order to maximize my HOS efficiency because I'm running on daily recaps and I don't have a full HOS clock.

Anyways thanks for the help and responses everyone! And now if anyone has this question maybe this thread will show up in their search engine and it'll help somebody else out. Because I'm sure I can't be the only one who was unsure if a 3-7-7-3 splits would be legal to do.

Last, thank God for ELD's because there's no way I could have done all that math with me being tired as it is. So much easier to know the rules but let the ELD do the hard math.