14 month old light sleeping??

[bigfishlittlefishtupperwarebox]

My 14 month old DD is generally a good sleeper - she goes to bed at 7 and (unless ill or teething) will stay there until 7am. However, she can wake up to 7/8 times from 7 until about 11, essentially until the rest of the house is in bed. She cries, as if for her dummy, but sometimes she has it in her hand and is more than capable of putting it back in herself. It’s as if she just needs one of us to lay her back down. There are only me and DH in the house and it’s not exactly noisy but it seems as if she doesn’t settle until we’re in bed. It’s as if she’s just dozing and waking. Is this just how it is, or is there something I can do to help her get into a deeper sleep earlier? Any ideas appreciated.

It sounds like her natural body clock isn’t going into the deeper sleep until later which can be totally normal - lots of assumptions that babies should go to sleep at 7/7.30 but many aren’t ready to go into the deep sleep at this stage.

Other than that just sounds like she needs parental guidance to go back to sleep

How are her physical motor skills? As soon as she is physically able to go from standing to lying down without help, shift from lying her back down to tapping the bed and getting her to lie down. Do the same at bedtime, start putting her into the cot standing up and encouraging her to lie down herself.

For light sleeping, try something like white noise. The idea is to use a constant tone of noise to drown out background noises so that they don't wake you. I use a desk fan for this purpose. You can get various gadgets and apps to do it too though.

Also, if you don't already have blackouts at the window, try that. Be sure she is warm enough but not too hot and doesn't have lots of distracting things like mobiles and lights flashing around the room.

Thanks. Hadn’t thought about putting her to bed standing - she can lie back down and does sometimes. There are blackout blinds and she goes to sleep with a white noise thing but it automatically turns off after 20 mins. Maybe worth trying the fan instead. Thanks for the advice!