What do you do if your baby wakes up at 2am and wants to play?

[Squigglywiggly]

Last night my dd (11 months) woke up full of beans at 2am. After 2 hours... We gave her a bath which worked finally! What do you normally do?

Hi squigglywiggly...my DS went through this phase. 2am is no realistic hour for mummy to be up playing with baby.
We need our sleep just as much (if not more) than they do.
I used to just lay my DS back down with his dummy & comforter...if that was in his cot or in my bed & if he sat up...I would repeat it again...lay him down with dummy etc.
Very supernanny....I would say - its bed time now...the first few times & by the third time I said nothing.
It worked for us so I really hope it works for you.
As long as your LO isn't teething...poorly etc I would give this ago. Hope you get a good nights sleep soon.

I forgot to say that over-stimulating them with lights..noise...talking etc will just encourage them to stay awake...a fear of missing out in my LOs case- so nosey!

Sounds like classic sleep regression / overtired behaviour; there's a very common sleep regression at around 11 months.

There?s more info here, here and here.

I let him roam around the bed in the dark (we co-sleep). He always gets drowsy again after 1.5 hours, so after he's been up that long, I feed / rock him back to sleep. There's some biological basis to it - 'awake cycles' last 1.5 hours long.

If I missed the 1.5 hours point, it would be 3 hours (ie 2 x 1.5 hours) before he got sleepy again.

It's a good idea to make sure you only use the dimmest light possible as bright lights re-set the body clock and make it harder for them to go back to sleep and keep on a normal day/night pattern.

Dim light,calm,quiet voice,move slowly,keep saying things like "time to go to sleep...." don't get in the habit of anything like baths or games,though I know it's so hard. Does she have a "snuggly" like a blanket or soft toy to associate with sleeping?

This isn't something we had a lot of, but in general for night-time wakings, we never turn on the light. We have one of those little rechargeable Ikea nightlights. We don't talk much either - just whisper, replace dummy etc. Would your DD just play around by herself and then fall back to sleep if you don't intervene?

I used to make sure they were clean and dry and not thirsty (gave water) and then would leave them to it.

Do all the above in as much darkness as possible without talking tool

Thanks for responses - I know we are not the only ones.

Bellavita - sadly she won't play I'm cot on own. Just shouty cries :(

Yes, but if she is clean, dry not thirsty etc, then shouty cries is ok... they may get shoutier when she realises that no one is going to play with her and after a while she should get bored and go to sleep. You need to be firm.