Michelle - How old is dd? And what time does she go to bed? We have had the same issue with Maya, sometimes waking and crying and hour or two after going to bed. We think it is related to when we have a particularly busy day or do something more ambitious than stroll around the neighborhood in the hour before we put her down for the night. But usually, she settles down pretty quickly and goes back to bed. Sometimes dh changes her diaper just to distract her.
She also wakes in the middle of the night, it like you waking up and rolling over and going back to sleep. Sometimes you never realize you were awake, sometimes it takes 20 minutes to get back to sleep. Also, as they get more vocal, for whatever reason, they think the middle of the night is the perfect time to practice talking. We do the same as you - leave her be unless she's getting upset. However, we are very careful not to make any noise lest she hear someone else is up and want company.
We also have the same wake-up problem. Although since her 6-mos growth spurt (I long for the days when she slept until 8am!), it has been between 5 and 6:30am. This presents a dilemma, because I don't want her to get in the habit of waking up at 5am. If she gets up before 6am, I feed her and put her straight back to bed. But then, should I wake her, or just let her sleep through her morning nap, knowing she'll be up a little earlier than normal? I've tried waking her, but that never seems to go well, and the day goes downhill from there.
Branwen - I love the photo. We haven't had alot of time for gardening since Maya was born, so we keep the front nice, and call the back "the natural area". Good thing we have a privacy fence or else the neighbors might have started complaining by now.
