My nearly-6-mth-old's night times have improved dramatically - for us, anyway! (See my thread, '5-mth-old's sleep worse & worse'.) We've moved her cot from the side to the end of our bed and she now seems happy to settle herself back to sleep when she wakes, especially if we put her lullaby CD on - we don't even need to get up to comfort her, never mind feed her.
The only thing is, it obviously takes her a lot longer to get back to sleep on her own than it did if we picked her up. She's very happy in her cot but I get the impression she rolls around in it for ages in the night while we're asleep - for example she woke at 4 this morning and I don't think she ever went back to sleep again.
The result is, she's now exhausted all day - falling asleep in her highchair while eating her lunch, getting very irritable, etc. I've started letting her nap as long as she wants to (e.g. 90mins at 9am instead of 30mins!), but it seems like she still needs more.
Is this just a transitional phase while she learns to settle herself more quickly? Or is there something I need to do to help her? I considered taking her toys out of her cot, but they do seem to be the main reason why she's so happy there and I'm worried that if I leave the cot bare she'll just go back to wailing all night!
Any thoughts/experiences much appreciated.
Thanks.