6 month old waking to play in night

[VictoriaandBump]

Hi, my nearly 6 month old DD is waking each night around 1ish and can be up for a couple of hours squealing, chattering and rolling around her cot. I thought things were improving after a few very difficult months (4 month sleep regression!) and she has dropped back down to around 1 or 2 night feeds but I'm not sure how to tackle this new problem.

Previously I used to feed her back to sleep when she woke but I don't think she is actually hungry as she is just looking around or smiling at me when I try to feed her. If I go in to her it seems to make her even more exitable but I find it really hard to lie there and listen to her making a racket as I can't get back to sleep.

Does anyone have any experience of this? I'm not sure what to do - try and resettle her ie rock her back to sleep, or just leave her to it and hope its just a phase?

I'm seriously starting to doubt that she will ever sleep through!!

My DS started doing this at 7 months, I'm not sure why. Sometimes babies do this sort of thing because their brains are busy working on new developments. Sometimes it can be related to overtiredness and a lack of daytime sleep.

I would have a go at ignoring her and see if she will settle herself. It would be worth trying for a night or two at least - if she's not distressed, she may well drop off again.

When my DS was doing this I used to feed him even though he didn't seem hungry; he'd happily take a feed and would usually go right back to sleep. But I ended up with him developing a feeding-to-sleep association where he woke at the end of nearly every sleep cycle and thought he needed a feed to get back to sleep again.

Because he can't settle himself, I tried resettling without a feed and if it didn't work, let him play in the dark till he got grumpy, which is when he hits his next 'drowsy window', and then rock him to sleep.

In fact, I've been trying to resettle without feeding for every waking (but feeding him if he's clearly hungry and won't settle). He is now waking much less frequently, and rarely wants to be up playing.