middle of the night wake-ups

On a similar topic to Kimmy's, sometimes kids lack the proper perception of time. It happens! As a tired mom, sometimes my choice on how to deal with the problem just enables it. In the past, if Aliyah woke up my first solution was for her to sleep with me. Bad idea. Second solution was to sleep with her. Also bad idea. To get her used to sleeping on her own it should stay that way and I just had to push myself not to give in (or become lazy).

Aliyah is a wonderful sleeper. In fact, I've never been one to hush down whenever she'd go to bed or have a nap. There wouldn't be screaming or loud music or anything, but I wouldn't put everything I was doing on mute and become a mime for the time being. Aliyah sleeps soundly regardless of what's going on around her and I'm actually proud of that! The problem is when she wakes up in the middle of the night when it IS quiet and Adam and myself are in bed. Our wake-up emergency reasons consist of 2 things: nightmares or not feeling well. Otherwise, it's no reason to wake us up and she is perfectly capable of going to the bathroom on her own. (I've even witnessed this when I AM awake, and she's half asleep... and does her business complete with washing her hands and stumbling back to bed all on her own.) 

Lately, she wakes up for silly things. "I can't find my doll." "My glow stickers aren't glowing anymore." "I can't find my pants." <- because she removed them in the middle of the night when she was asleep LOL. This sounds like it's not that big of a deal and YES, as parents, it involves sleepless nights. This is not about how it affects my sleep, but I'm concerned with her not getting enough shut-eye. Her bedtime is strictly 730. On holidays, weekends it's a more lenient 8ish. She functions best, mentally and emotionally, with a solid 12 hour night. If she's waking up, she's not getting that and her day is now affected. She's either grumpy, sensitive or a bit clumsy. All this is avoided with that 12 hour night.

We've talked about it together numerous times, but then it just happens again. Independence is highly encouraged with her and she's great all day... to the point she's just plain stubborn about doing everything herself. In the middle of the night, it's a complete 180 and she's all about dependency for minor minor things. 

Is there a reason?  How can I fix it? We all just want our sleeps back!!