DD is 6 months and for the past two weeks has been waking like clockwork at 4:45am for no other reason than to have a baby party. She's super happy and smile-y (which is both terribly cute and frustrating at such an early hour). It takes me almost an hour to put her back down. She's usually very easy to get back down in the middle of the night (still waking 2-4 times per night) but for some reason during this early morning one she really fights it. I think that by the time I get her back down it's just too close to her normal wake time (7:00), but who knows...

I'd try a later bedtime, but I'm not sure if that's the issue. We start her sleep routine around 6:45pm and she is usually asleep by 7:15pm. Starting at 6:00ish she is really fussy and obviously tired so I'd be scared to keep her awake any longer than we do.

I should also mention that in general her sleep is crap, but bearable. She does a semi-long stretch of 4 hours, then is up almost every two hours for the rest of the night.

Any advice or is this just babies bein' babies?