Hi My dd is six months and in the last two weeks has started waking and babbling and playing for 45mins to an hour before cying for and having her second feed of the night.
She has been a good sleeper since she was born, only waking for feeds or wind and either going back to sleep whilst being fed or going back to sleep herself. We have an established bedtime routine which also results in her often going to sleep by herself. At the end of the playing/feeding session she is usually awake and will also go back to sleep herself.
We have tried going into to her fairly quickly to feed her but she refuses the bottle, leaving her until she cries and then feeding her (on the basis that if we ignored the playing she might cry quicker for her milk - but this is not the case), putting her to bed later, changing to blankets and then back to sleeping bags and going into settle her without taking her out of the cot (but seeing as she isn't upset or unsettled this hasn't worked).
The only idea we have left is removing her mobile after she's first gone to sleep so she can't play with it and moving the cuddly toys from the end of her bed but am not convinced this will make much difference as I think she will just carry on playing anyway!
I can manage on being awake for an hour whilst she plays (just!) but am about to try ear plugs to block out playing noises. It is the getting back to sleep afterwards that I struggle with as am so awake myself.
Has anyone got any advice about trying to stop this playing session, is it just a phase or is it something we have got to live with and I need to train myself to get back to sleep better?
Thanks x