Help! Wants to play in the middle of the night...

[chocolatemarzipan]

DD is 16 weeks and up until the last few days has slept ok. The last couple of weeks she'd been going to bed about 8, fed at 10 (I woke her for this) then woke once about 3 or 4 for a feed then straight back to sleep until 8ish. It has all gone pear shaped...

Now waking twice most nights. The wake-up after 3am involves her being wide awake, waving arms, gurgling, smiling and generally being Playful. She's awake for 2-3 hours and it's killing me off! By the time she's going back to sleep, DS is starting to wake, so I'm basically starting the day at 3am. If I leave her for a bit she just talks to herself then starts to cry because she wants someone to play with, and wakes up the whole house. I'm always really careful, don't make eye contact, keep light dimmed etc, but it's not helping.

I'm BF. Not sure if this is relevant or not. I BF DS but didn't get this problem. Any suggestions very welcome.

I personally wouldn't link playfulness to bfing. I know bottle feds that do this too. Its a bit of a phase thing I think....

Do you use music? Worked for a friend. iTunes do great lullabies.

We only had this a couple of times and luckily no other DCs so I just kept leaving when she started playing, would go back in when upset, leave again when playing... As I said luckily only a couple of times so no idea if my tactic worked. However, my attitude has always been night is for sleeping and nothing else. So I would really try not to do anything other than sit with her. Keep lights off completely etc. But I think it is probably much easier with only one kid.

Watching with interest, DS did this around 4 months too, stopped, and has now started again (around 6.5 months)...

Thanks for the replies. Yes I've tried putting her mobile on. It keeps her quiet until it stops and she's still wide awake and starts talking again. Any other time of day it helps her to sleep. Maybe I need to find something that lasts longer. I really do try not to encourage the playing. All I do is get her out and hold her in the dark without talking or eye contact. It's hard to balance keeping her quiet and trying not to wake everybody with getting her to go back to sleep. I hope it's a better night truth, sorry you're being messed about as well! I'm bracing myself for a few boring hours awake though...