Help - early waking - any tips?

[meep]

My DD is 4.5 months and has been a pretty good sleeper. She goes to bed between 6.30pm/7pm then has a feed at 10.30pm. Normally she will sleep through until about 6.45am/7am.
However this week she has been waking around 5.30/6am. She's not hungry when she wakes up and is happy until she gets her morning feed at 7am. She just seems to want to play!
I know there is no magic solution - but if anyone has any tips/suggestions that would be great?!

is she still in your room in her cot? does she wake you and want you to play? or is she fairly quiet and just plays on her own?.....if she's waking you for the attention and not going back to sleep out of badgering you for it then it may be an idea to just leave her where she is, let her gurgle away etc, try and get a bit more sleep yourself and before you know it she should get bored and go back to sleep, and should then follow by just sleeping through!!

Thanks glaskham. She is still in our room - she wakes up and "chats" very very loudly! It is pitch black and I let her chat away for about 20 minutes on her own. This morning I then brought her downstairs and put her in her Moses basket in the living room (where she sleeps during the day)still in the dark - but still no sleep! I suppose I ahould just be happy that she is waking up in this quite cute way and not screaming and crying!!!

how warm is it? i found putting the heating on earlier helped my ds sleep later. (although sadly didn't help for all the evil wake-ups in between 10 and 5!)

I will try that - I had actually just changed the heating so that it came on later in the morning - so you may have found the solution!

My LO is now nearly 5 months and does exactly the same thing (waking at 5 or 5.30) for a few days every two or three weeks. Although as she sleeps through from 7, perhaps I have less to complain about than you. Like your DD she seems happy and not really in need of anything. I used to get up with her but know I just leave until it's a more reasonable hour or until she does start to sound upset. Often she falls back asleep but it can take up to an hour by which time of course I'm wide awake. And after a few days of the early waking she'll have a week or so of sleeping through til 6.30 or 7 again. However I'm consoling myself that by leaving her in her cot when she's awake but happy I'm allowing her to learn to amuse herself.

I did cheat this morning by taking her into bed with me at 5.30 but she was really really noisy and I really really wanted some more sleep.

Agree with the cold thing too. My DD was stirring in the middle of the night until we relented and set the heating to come on for an hour at 3am.

You could consider putting her in her own room. Then you can ignore her when she wakes up at ungodly hours, or if she cries, go in, give her a hug and a kiss, and put her back in bed. Hopefully she will fall back to sleep.

Putting her in her own room will give me more sleep I know, but I'm just not ready to move her out yet!