Why is My Baby Waking Up at 3 A.M.?
That right there might be one of the most common question parents ask.
Is it a developmental milestone? A dreaded regression? Are they getting too much daytime sleep? Or maybe too little? Maybe they’re just hungry. Maybe they’re too hot or too cold.
The truth is - it could be any of those things separately, and it could even be a combination of a few of them.
What this basically means, and what you’re probably already aware of, is that Baby. Sleep. Is. Complicated.
Your baby’s body and brain is rapidly going through significant changes, and by the time they’ve got one issue under control, it’s not long before a new one pops up to take its place.
There are factors you can control, obviously. If your baby is too hot, you can turn up the AC or put a fan in the room. If they’re teething, a little Children’s Tylenol can often solve the problem, at least temporarily.
But those are the simple fixes. The reason most people have such a challenging time with their babies’ sleep is because of the not-so-simple problems that don’t have obvious solutions.
Imagine this scenario: An 18 month old child gets plenty of fresh air and sunlight during the day, and goes down easily for long, restful naps. But bedtime rolls around and suddenly they’re full of energy and want to play. When they’re told it’s time for bed, they get upset and bedtime becomes a battle. Once they do finally get to sleep, they wake up several times at night and never sleep past 5:30 in the morning.
Is this a visual that resonates with you? If so, you’re not alone!
So what gives? What is going on? Is baby getting too much sleep during the day? That would be the reasonable assumption, for sure. After all, if us grown-ups were to take a 3 hour nap in the afternoon, there’s a good chance we’d have a hard time falling and staying asleep that night.
But the opposite is almost always the case. What this baby is demonstrating in this scenario is actually a need for more sleep, not less.
In order to understand this counterintuitive reasoning, a little background on how the sleep system works is needed.
About three hours prior to when we’re naturally prone to waking up, our bodies start secreting a hormone called cortisol. It’s a stimulating hormone produced in times of stress in order to elevate the heart rate and stimulate the nervous system (in case, y’know, bears), but in the morning, it’s just trying to get us started. Think of it as Mother Nature’s caffeine. And if cortisol is our morning cup of coffee, melatonin is our evening glass of wine. Once the sun starts to go down, our bodies recognize the onset of night and begin to produce this lovely sleep- inducing hormone, which helps us get to sleep and stay asleep until morning, when the whole process starts over again.
But as beautifully crafted as this system is, it’s not perfect and it’s easily confused. So in the situation above, here’s what’s happening...
When Baby’s body begins to produce melatonin, there is a narrow window of time during which the body expects Baby to be going to sleep. After all, she’s a baby. What’s she got to stay awake for? She doesn’t watch The Bachelor and she hasn’t discovered the Internet yet.
The brain instinctively decides that something isn’t right; that for whatever reason, baby can’t sleep, (probably because, y’know, bears.) And if baby’s got a bear to run from, adding a shot of cortisol should help increase chances for survival.
So that’s exactly what it does.
Baby’s system starts secreting cortisol and, before you know it, they’re a little bit cranked. This often shows up in the form of playfulness and an abundance of energy. In short, baby missed the window of opportunity and is now going to have a hard time getting to sleep.
So what does all of this have to do with the dreaded 3 A.M. wake ups?
Assuming your Baby’s circadian rhythm is scheduling a 6 A.M. wake up, the body starts to secrete cortisol three hours prior to that. At this point, the melatonin production has ceased for the night. So baby hits the end of a sleep cycle around 3 A.M., gets to that “slightly awake” state, and now there’s a little bit of stimulant and no natural sedative. This, combined with a lack of independent sleep skills, means that baby’s probably going to wake up fully, and have a really hard time getting back to sleep.
So now for the big question you’ve probably been hoping I might have an answer for… How do I fix it?
While there’s no quick fix for adjusting baby’s hormone production schedule, there are several ways you can help out:
Get Baby outdoors during the day as much as possible. Natural light during the day is the big cheerleader for melatonin production at night.
Ensure that Baby’s room is as dark as you can get it. You can also stimulate the sunset to cue melatonin production by turning down bright lights throughout the house at least an hour before bedtime.
Avoid any and all screen time during that hour before bed (longer if you can) as these devices emit blue light that stimulates cortisol production right at the time when you’re trying to avoid it.
Most importantly, you can get Baby on a predictable, consistent sleep schedule and teach them the skills needed to fall asleep independently.
And although I know I made light of it earlier, you should always check and make sure that baby’s room is absolutely, positively, 100% free of bears. Waking up to a snarling grizzly will set your baby’s sleep habits back immeasurably.
Sleep Well!
Margaret