Early Morning Wake-Ups

My oy my! These are the one of the biggest issues for every parent. And with good reason - because hellooo… no baby should be waking at the ungodly hour of 5 am, ready to start their day! Particularly once baby is sleep trained and is sleeping through the night, those early wake-ups are a killer! The good news is, there is always a reason!

I’m going to go through a few of the reasons here. So go ahead, read through, and see which one may apply to you and your situation. But remember, whenever making changes to babies routines, it can take 3-4 days to see results. So don’t try out 1 option tonight and another option tomorrow, and then wonder why nothing is working! Pick one and stick to it for a few days.

First things first, what is considered an early morning? Given that the ideal wake-time for babies is between 6-8 A.M., anything before 6 A.M. is considered a middle of the night wake-up. (I’ll be honest – I am so not a morning person, so I’d love for even 7 A.M. to be considered the middle of the night… but unfortunately it just doesn’t work like that :/ )

Second, let’s just put it out there that sleep drive is very low for the last 1-2 hours before baby wakes up (this has to do with hormones and we’ll get into that another time!), and that’s why these early wake-ups are so common and not so easy to fix.

Is your baby newly sleep trained? Or are you just about to start the process? If so, let me just warn you that it’s actually normal if baby starts waking early during this process!

For the first time in baby’s life, they are getting 9, 10, maybe 11 hours of consolidated nighttime sleep and that is HUGE. Baby is feeling GOOD about it. It’s the best sleep of their life and they start thinking that’s it – that’s all they need. They are ready to start the day.

But no way are we going to stop there and let that happen! Keep up with your middle of the night strategy and push baby to sleep more – for their benefit, and ours! They definitely can and they’ll definitely feel even better after 11-12 hours of sleep than they did after 10.

This may not be the only thing you have to do, so keep reading for some other pieces of the puzzle to pay attention to that may explain why baby is suddenly waking up when the rest of the house is still sleeping.

1.       How Dark is the Room Really?

Most people have heard that it’s easier for baby to fall asleep in darkness as opposed to when there is light. And so, most people will make the room as dark as they can with blackout shades, curtains, blinds, etc. But, sometimes, what we think is dark, is just not dark enough!

Sounds crazy, but hear me out! If you go into your child’s sleep space, it should be pitch dark right when you come in, AND pitch dark 10 minutes later when your eyes get used to the darkness. If you can see your hand in front of your face… if you can make out where the bed, dresser, door, etc is… if you can get around the room easily without bumping into anything (haha)… IT IS NOT DARK ENOUGH.

And sometimes, the other problem I’ll see is that the room is totally dark when baby went to sleep at night… but now when the sun is coming up at 5:30 A.M. and it’s creeping in through the gap under/on the side of the door OR through the teeny tiny crack from the blackout shades – that little bit of light can trigger baby to wake up! So let’s close up those holes first and see if that’ll do the trick!

(Side note - I recently got the EZ blackout shades to use when my son sleeps at my in-laws house, and they really get the job done. No light peeking through at all from the windows!)

2.       What’s Happening Right when Baby Wakes up?

Okay, so baby is waking up at 5 AM and you’re exhausted and just want to be sleeping, so you take baby out of their crib and bring them into your bed for some early morning cuddles, but really so you can sleep in just a little bit more. (I’ve been there!)

OR, your 3 year old wakes up early, so you let them go watch some television while you get an extra 30 minutes to snooze. Win-win for everyone!

Or maybe, you settle for that early morning wake-time, and go out and start your day. You get baby up and feed them their bottle/breakfast. What’s the point of fighting that early morning at this point, right?

Maybe your exact situation is different, but here’s the bottom line – when baby is waking up early, we have to ask ourselves, “Are we somehow reinforcing that early wake-up with whatever we do?” Now, in baby’s head, the logic may not sound so straightforward, but the thinking is something like this, “Every time I wake up at 5 am, I get to cuddle with mommy.” So why not keep waking up at that time?

So if your baby is waking up early, let’s look at what you might be unintentionally doing that is reinforcing that wake-up. Let’s start to create a separation between baby waking up in the morning and the first thing that occurs so that baby will no longer be waking up for _____, but will instead be getting all the sleep that they needed.

3.       Are Baby’s Naps too Short or too Long?

There is a specific amount of sleep baby’s should be getting within a 24 hour period. Until at least 3 years old, 11-12 hours of night sleep is needed, while nap length varies.

Often times, baby is napping SO well in the daytime, that they are actually fulfilling their naptime sleep need AND cutting into the 11-12 hours of nighttime sleep need. So of course nighttime sleep will be shorter since only a certain amount of sleep is needed within 24 hours.

And while it may sound great to get a 3 hour break from your 2.5 year old toddler in the afternoon and just suffer with an early morning, night sleep is actually more important. So if baby is getting too much sleep during naps, we need to cut them shorter to allow for longer sleep at night. Sometimes, this looks like cutting a nap shorter by 15 minutes, and sometimes by an hour.

The opposite, or too little daytime sleep, can actually also cause a problem, counter-intuitive though it may seem! A baby who is not getting enough sleep is an overtired baby. And one of the ways in which overtiredness presents itself is through early morning wake-ups.

So let’s look at the naps that are happening throughout baby’s day and make sure that they are not too long, or too short. Kind of reminds me of the story with Goldilocks and the 3 bears… it needs to be just right!

4.       What is Happening at Bedtime?

Alright, so we just talked about how an overtired baby can lead to early morning wake-ups. So first things first – let’s make sure bedtime is not too late and that the amount of time between the last nap and bedtime is appropriate. This might, once again, seem counterintuitive. If baby is going down to sleep late and waking up early… won’t putting them down to sleep early cause them to wake up even earlier? Good news is, it doesn’t work that way. Give the earlier bedtime a try and let’s see if that will do the trick!

Next, let’s look at the bedtime routine. Is baby getting drowsy during the routine? If baby isn’t putting themselves to sleep at bedtime, during the early morning (when, remember, sleep drive is very low), baby may be unable to put themselves back to sleep! So make sure to eliminate any and all traces of drowsiness before bed.

Finally, the last piece I like to look at within the bedtime routine actually pertains to babies older than 12 months old. Are you still including milk/a bottle in the routine? If so, it’s time to remove it! One reason why is, like above, the bottle may be what is getting baby drowsy, and so, baby will not be able to put themselves back to sleep in the morning. The second reason is more nutritional – too much sugar before bed will make it harder to get to sleep. Let’s work on bringing that milk out of the routine. Perhaps it can happen right after dinner, or maybe even half an hour after dinner. Just as long as it’s not a part of the bedtime routine (for babies older than 1)!

CONCLUSION

I know I just shared A LOT of information with you. There really are so many pieces of the puzzle to look at. Sometimes it might be just 1 little tweak that needs to be made, while other times, it may actually be a combination of factors.

Whatever tweaks you do go on attempting to make, be consistent. It may take a few days for the changes to kick in and for baby to adjust.

As always, feel free to reach out to me if you are struggling!

Happy Sleeping!