Wanting to play in middle of night

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pangmei

Registered User
Hi all,

My 8 month old has recently starting waking up in the middle of the night and wanting to play. He starts off just talking to himself and we just leave him be hoping that he'll go back to sleep, but he gets progressively louder and when we go to him, we find him wide awake grinning at us. My husband actually stayed up for an hour playing with him last night (he doesn't get to see him much during the week as he's always asleep by the time he gets home from work), but it's obviously something I don't want to encourage. Anyone have any tips?

Thanks,
Grace
 
we had similar problems around the time our son learned how to stand up in his crib - @ 6.5 months. The most important thing is that you are not responsive to it as he has to learn that it's time for bed and that you will not come in to play with him. In the early stages of this, we would go in to make sure he was ok, leaving the lights off and lie him back down and patting his back (he's a tummy sleeper). This did not work as he immediately thought that when we touched him, it was indeed playtime! we then had to let him cry it down. He would play, realize that no one was coming in and then he would start to cry. We would peek on him every 8 minutes...he would cry for about 15 minutes straight before becoming exhausted. It's hard at the start, but it took about a week, but soon enough he learned how to put himself back to sleep - an important skill to teach them early on. Occassionally, he still gets up once a night and it's usually b/c of a very wet diaper so we quickly change him, put him right back down without cuddles and he immediately goes right back to sleep.

Whatever you chose to do - consistency is the KEY so he does not get confused.
 
thanks for your reply southside852. i agree that consistency is the key, but do feel sorry for hubby who hardly gets to play with baby during the week.
 
The husband situation is quite difficult and tricky for the time they spend together is precious. But remember that your son needs 10-12 hours of sleep a night for his own health and growth.

Perhaps you can put your son down an hour later or wake him up an hour earlier to play with daddy. The middle of night scenario might be backfire on you in the end and your son will be confused with day and night behavior.
 
Luckily Finn is quite a good sleeper and gets 11-12 hrs at night and 3 hours during the day, and he makes up for any lost sleep by sleeping in later or having longer naps during the day, so i'm not worried about him not getting enough sleep. I think hubby just have to get tough and resist temptation to play with him! Hope this middle of the night playing is just a phase that will pass soon
 
hehe...same with my son here at 15 months. He used to stay up for up to 3 hours during the night !! We ignored him totally, but he just has enough fun by himself - we started to take out all the toys in his room so that there is less thing to occupy him at night.

now we never put him in bed before 9:30, late by some standards but early bed time means he is fully rested before us adults are. but over time it does pass, and altho every now and then he may still wake up, its a lot shorter ( 30 mins) and not so much to play ( hen lies there babbling to himself but doesn't move around).

Don't worry, I think it will pass. its important not to encourage him like southside said.
 
We noticed our daughters sleep problems became worse if she watched any t.v. Didn't matter what time of day it was or for how long? It would always affect her sleep patterns. We didn't let her watch but the maid sometimes did. She would let her watch those 'educational' vids. Not a good idea.
 
like konradsmom said, think about also what is in his room / crib. like her, we took out a few toys and also adjusted the room temperature.

just some food for thought . . .
 
Thanks all for your tips. We left Finn to play by himself in his cot when he woke up in the middle of the night (had to stop hubby from going in to play with him!) and after a little while, he self settled and went back to sleep. Now I'm thinking that the problem isn't so much with Finn, but with the hubby, haha!
 
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