8 Mo Old Waking in Middle of the Night to Play

[Gemini529]

OK so my baby just turned 8 months old and for the past few nights, he's been waking up at like 4 AM.  He always slept from about 9:00 PM until 7 AM.  He'd wake up to nurse maybe once or twice but then go RIGHT back to sleep.  

All of a sudden, he's waking up and not wanting to go back to sleep.  He doesn't seem upset or cranky, he just looks at me and smiles, "talks", taps my shoulder, kicks my leg, and then when I look at him, he laughs.  He's not hungry because I try to feed him and he isn't interested.  But if I try to hush him and use my usual techniques to get him back to sleep, he starts to cry.

Two nights ago, I was able to get him back to sleep by rubbing his back but it took like 40 min and he really fought it.  This time, I just gave up because he was obviously wide awake so I came down and made myself some coffee and let him play with this toys on the floor for awhile.  He finally just took a morning "nap" around 7 am.  

Is this typical of an 8 month old?  We cosleep in case that matters. Could it be teething or would he be crying if that were the case?  He currently has no teeth! 

[plantnerd]

My boy did the same around that age.  I just"played dead" and was as boring as I could possibly be, and ignored him other than keeping one hand on him to make sure he didn't fall off the bed.  Yeah, he cried, but 4 am isn't fun time.  After a week or so he figured out it sucked to be the only one up, that mom wasn't playing, and started going back to sleep.

[Unlikely Mama]

If I were you, I would avoid getting up with him and taking him out of the bedroom at 4am.  Babies learn new habits quickly at 8mo and instead of it being a passing phase, he could decide that it's worthwhile to be awake at that time. I think if you ignore him as much as possible  he will soon realize there isn't much to be up for at that hour.

[Gemini529]

Thanks for the input!  I held my ground last night and didn't get up with him.  He eventually fell back asleep.  Hopefully he will stop this soon!  It's pretty exhausting.  I definitely won't let him get up that early again because he was sooooooo cranky that whole day.  He's been much better today.