Mom Seeking to Change Sleep Hours of 9 Month Old...

I had similar trouble. Try going in the opposite direction. Try making bedtime around 6 or so. I found that the later I put my son to bed, the earlier he'd wake up. I have read a few books on sleep for infants and for some reason when they get overtired (going to bed later) they wake up earlier. I am not an expert, by any means, I am just sharing what I've learned from a couple of doctors who studied sleep. You'd think they would be so tired, they'd sleep longer, but it doesn't work that way for them.

Putting her to bed later won't help because if they are overtired they don't sleep as good.

My son went through a phase of waking up between 4 and 5 AM. We started offering him a sippy cup of water if he cried. If he didn't cry we just ignored him, he would play in the crib for about 30 mins and then go back to sleep. Ignoring him was hard because his crib is in our room, but it was what was best.

He now sleeps until somewhere between 7:30 and 8:30 most days.

the irony of sleep is that the more tired she is, the less she will sleep. which means, the later you put her down, the earlier she'll get up. and then that's going to screw up the timing of her naps, which means that either the schedule is off or you're asking her to go longer between sleep periods, which leads to her being over-tired and not sleeping as much or as well. and it compounds from there.
if she starts early waking, it could be teething, in which case it might help you to go in as soon as she makes a peep, give her some Tylenol (or Motrin if you know it's teething and her gums are swelling) and hope she goes back to sleep. or try to immediately soothe her back to sleep in whatever way works best for you, before she's able to get really awake. but don't push her bedtime back. if anything, move it up, try to get her down at 6:15 or even 6 for a time. the added stress of teething may mean that she needs more sleep.

In my opinion i wouldn't change a thing. Well i def. wouldn't change her bedtime any later than 7pm. If you start putting her bedtime any later than that you will start fighting her being over tired. When that happens she will start fighting going to bed because it will be a bad experience and she won't look forward to it. At this point it's not a bad thing for her so she does it but if that changes you would have started a battle with her. She's prob. just waking up for teething or small things and it will go away on it own and if you start changing things it will take longer to work it's way out. I feel for you as far as getting up but if it was me i would switch out with your husband on who gets up with her BUT i wouldn't make getting up inviting. I wouldn't turn on lights, play with her take her out of the bed unless she really puts up a fuss about it. But even than i wouldn't make it to he best interest. Make it boring. No talking, singing, playing or any other reason to be awake.

I agree with the other comments on sticking with the original bedtime around 6:30. I wouldn't go in unless she made a fuss. If you decide you need to check on her I would do it after say 5 minutes the first day, and try to gradually add more time until her internal clock resets to the appropriate time.

All I can say is count your self lucky! My son did not get good sleep for the first year of his life, though I think me and his father were more to blame there. Though it may be difficult going from 12 hours of sleep to suddenly having to wake up at 4am, I suggest you put her down at her normal time and get yourself to sleep earlier. As it is now, my son used to go down at 8:30pm but recently has decided he wants to stay up until 10pm a lot of nights, sometimes even 11pm! He is almost 3 years old but I do miss the days when he went to bed earlier. Now we try to get him in bed between 8:30 and 9pm but he still stays up for an hour or so later. We don't try to play with him or anything, in fact we make the whole house dark and tell him to go to sleep. You can try to encourage your little one to sleep when she gets up at 4am, but she may also be having a growth spurt so she might be hungry. And yes there may be more teeth on the way. All I know is every child is different but I remember many nights I wished so badly that my son would sleep at least 4 hours straight. I'm sure it will all work out in time. Good luck!