9.5 month old suddenly waking in the night!

[Gella75]

My little girl is 9.5 months old and has slept through the night for a while now. However the last 2 weeks she has woken up every night in the middle of the night. She sometimes takes 2 hours to go back to sleep and will still wake up early 5-7am. I have no idea what is going on. Sometimes the only way to get her back to sleep is to give her a bottle. I’m not sure she’s actually hungry or not. She has gone off her milk in the day time but is eating fairly well so not sure if she could be hungry or not. No problems with naps at all. And she generally falls to sleep on her own with a dummy.
When she wakes up she cries untill I pick her up and usually falls back to sleep then as soon as I put her down she screams again. If I manage a night without having to feed her she is crying for a bottle as soon as she wakes up. However if I feed her in the night she will wake happy in the morning and not desperate for milk. So I’m wondering if maybe she is hungry in the night? Or am I creating a bad habit by feeding her in the night again! Please help!!!

[creations]

Hi there
Your LO's sleep needs may have changed, some LOs start showing signs of moving towards the 2-1 nap drop at this age, although it is generally still early. If your LO needed longer than guidance A times or was low sleep needs or dropped other naps sooner than the "usual" age then I'd suggest looking up the FAQs on the 2-1 nap drop.

As a separate issue, it sounds like she has started to take milk in the night rather than in the day.  Unless she is ill or you are BF on demand she probably doesn't need a night feed but it's a bit of a circle where she takes less milk in the day so needs it at night so takes less in the day.  I'd wean the night feed so that it is 30ml less each night (then offer water instead) which means she isn't too hungry but also more ready to take milk on waking in the morning.  Make sure her milk feeds are not dropping too much or offer some milky puddings (made with formula or breast milk or cows milk - and sugar free of course) or cheese to keep the dairy intake up.

Hope that helps