Early Morning Wake Ups:

Are you struggling with your baby or toddler waking up before 6:30am? 

Are they waking up ready to start the day and nothing seems to help? 

I can help you with this!

Early morning wake ups aren’t usually a quick fix, it does take some work and consistency to make a change, especially if it has been going on for a while. 

Let’s discuss why these early morning wake-ups can happen and why this might be happening with your child.

Early morning wake-ups occur when your baby or toddler wakes up between 4:00am and 6:00am. Any wake-up after 6:00/6:30 am is considered normal for your baby, so that timing might just be their natural circadian rhythm. Some babies or toddlers can still wake up later if you work at it and change their circadian rhythm. Every baby and toddler is different, but you can get them to sleep until at least 6 or 6:30am.

The reason your child is waking up between 4:00-6:00 am is, this is when they are in their lightest cycle of sleep. At this time it is easier to be woken up and harder to fall back to sleep. Between these times, it is normal for your child to wake or stir a couple times and try to fall back to sleep. It is harder for them to fall back to sleep at this time because they’ve already slept for a while (lower sleep pressure.) They feel rested and don’t fully understand that they need more sleep. Another reason it is not so easy for them to fall back to sleep is that their melatonin levels are decreasing in preparation to wake up.

Babies that are waking up early probably also haven’t learned the skills to fall back to sleep at this stage. When your body continues to wake up early, it starts to change its circadian rhythm, making your body naturally wake up at this time in the future, creating a ‘habit’. 

Reasons for Early Morning Wake Ups:

Room Environment, specifically darkness

At Sleep Serenity, we believe that the room must be made to be completely dark  in order to help them sleep through the early morning. Most early morning wake-ups are due to the fact that the room is simply too bright and keeps them awake. In order to test this, sit in your child’s bedroom for 10-15 minutes to see if any sunlight is coming in through the windows. Even the smallest amount of light will wake them up or keep them awake. In order to black-out the window, you can buy window coverings like blackout shades or black out curtains, but most times those still let some light out through the sides. Some great options are blackout pleated paper shades, blackout window film or portable blackout blinds with suction cups which are perfect for home and travel. If any light is still coming in, you can use tin foil, cardboard or black garbage bags to help block out the light. Now that you have your window blacked out, check around the room for anything that has a light on it. This can be your monitor, air conditioner, humidifier, sound machine, oil diffuser, etc. Use black electrical tape and cover up the lights to ensure the room is fully dark. If you have a big gap under the door, buy a door draft stopper to help eliminate the light (and sound) coming from outside the room.

Sounds:

Sounds from outside or even from inside the house can wake up your child in the early morning. In order to help block out sound, you can put a sound machine in your child’s bedroom. It should be three feet or more from their head and should be no louder than 50 decibels. You can download an app on your phone to measure decibel levels.

Bedtime:

If your child’s bedtime is too late, this can cause early morning wake ups, even if they are falling asleep quickly at night. Try moving up the bedtime by 15-30 minutes. Even this small change can make a huge impact on their sleep. Most babies need a bedtime between 6:00-8:00pm, but no later than that. If your child is consistently waking up at 6:30 am (which is a normal time for a baby to wake up,) but goes to bed around 8 pm, try moving up the bedtime by 15 minutes each day to get your child to sleep longer at night. You may even notice them sleeping until closer to 7 am.

Baby is overtired:

If your baby is overtired from having wake windows that are too long before bed, this can cause early morning wake-ups as well. Many people think that if their baby stays up later they will sleep in longer, but it is usually the opposite. Late nights = early morning wake-up (most of the time). Using age appropriate wake windows and making sure they don’t exceed them is key. If your child is tired, it is okay to put them to bed 15-20 minutes early in order to prevent them from getting over tired. This will not cause them to wake up early, in fact they will sleep longer because they went to bed before they became over-tired. Each child is different, so knowing your child’s sleepy cues is very important. 

Wake windows :

• 0-3 months: 30-90 minutes

• 4-6 months: 1.5-2.5 hours

• 7-13 months: 2.25 - 3.5 hours

• 13-18 months: 3-4 hours

• 18-24 months:  4-5 hours

• 24-36 months: 4.5-5.5 hours
  
  The last wake window is usually the longest of the day, except when they are on one nap, 

Too much day time sleep:

Sometimes your child may wake up early because they are simply sleeping too much in the day. Look at the recommended day time sleep for your child’s age and see if they are getting too much sleep. Every child is different and some just need more sleep. If it is affecting their night-time sleep, try to cut naps back as this can help. You can try to shorten the nap by 15 minutes every day-or- two, to see if this helps. Sometimes early morning wake ups are a sign that it is time to drop a nap (if they are at the age appropriate time to do so). Wait at least two weeks before dropping a nap to make sure something else is not the cause.

Total Daytime sleep recommended:

• 0-3 months: 4-6 hours

• 4-6 months: 3-4.5 hours

• 7-13 months: 2.5-3.5 hours

• 13-18 months: 2-3 hours

• 18- 24 months: 2-3 hours

• 24-36 months: 1-2.5 hours

Not getting enough daytime sleep:

If your child is taking short naps it can cause them to be awake for longer stretches which can lead to them being over tired. Remember, over-tired babies lead to early morning wake-ups. If your child has a bad nap it is okay to put them to bed 15-30 minutes early to make up for the lost daytime sleep.

Nap Schedule:

If you are offering your child’s nap too early it can be enabling the early morning wake ups to continue to happen. This can be hard because when your child wakes up early, they will get tired earlier. But by offering the nap too early this will lead to throwing off the schedule for the day. In order to keep their schedule you would have to do one of these things:  leading to too much daytime sleep, too long of wake windows or too early of a bedtime. This can also cause early morning wake ups. 

But you also want to find the balance of not offering the nap too late, leading to your child getting too overtired which can lead to bedtime struggles and early morning wake ups. But how does the first wake window affect the whole day you might ask? 

The first nap sets the whole tone for the rest of the day. If you start the day overtired you will be trying to catch up or make up for this all day, leading to overtiredness at bedtime. 

Be sure to offer the first nap from when you take your child out of the dark room or the ideal wake up time to get back on track.

Hunger:

This is one of our immediate responses when our babies wake up in the middle of the night; they must be hungry! But, if your baby is taking-in enough calories in the day, following growth charts and they are old enough, then they don’t need to eat at night. Making sure your baby is eating enough in the day to prevent this early morning wake up is key.

If your baby isn’t able to go all night without a feeding, it is better to offer one night feeding (and wean it when they are ready) than to have early morning wake-ups. The best time to have this feeding is between 2-4 am, making sure they are staying awake for the feeding and putting them down awake. This will help them to fall back to sleep on their own more-easily so they can have a more consistent wake up time. Check out my blog on how to wean night time feedings to know when and how to wean the feeding to prevent early morning wake-ups.

Follow your baby’s hunger cues. Offer a daytime feeding anywhere from 2.5 to 4 hours for the entire first year of life. If you truly think your child is waking up out of hunger then add one or two ounces to each feeding or add in an additional feeding to make up the extra calories in the day. If you baby seems very distracted while eating, space out the feeds every 3-4 hours to ensure they are hungry and you can even give them a little toy to play with to distract them while they are eating. You can also try to sit in a room that has less distractions if nothing else is helping. If your child is older than 6 months, talk to your paediatrician about adding solid foods into their diet for additional calories. 

How is your baby falling asleep:

If your baby is unable to get themselves to sleep at night, this could also be a reason for early morning wake ups. During the night, it is easier to rock or nurse them back to sleep when they are still tired. Between 4:00-6:00 am, it is a lot harder to get them back to sleep because your baby is not as tired. Teaching them how to fall asleep independently is the key to helping with these early morning wake-ups. If your baby is going to bed too drowsy,  they are not fully learning how to fall asleep independently and will still struggle with the early mornings. Make sure not to feed your baby right before you lay them down for bed, as this can cause them to be too drowsy. 

Example Schedule: bath, change, bottle/nurse, read books, sing/hum song, cuddle, put down to bed. The important thing to remember is to make sure that your baby is going down fully awake and they learn to fall asleep on their own. Making sure they stay awake during the whole feeding also helps to make sure that they are getting a good long feeding before bed so they can sleep longer without waking-up due to hunger. Reading books after feeding them keeps them awake so they are not drowsy when they are put to bed. This is an easy fix for getting your baby to fall asleep more independently. Sleep-training through these early morning wake-ups to teach your baby to fall back to sleep will help teach them to sleep longer. Remember that sleep-training doesn't start until they are 4 months old, over 12 pounds and approved by your doctor.

How you respond to early morning wake up:

If your child has been waking-up early and you go in to start the day at 5 am, opening the curtains and feeding them, you could inadvertently cause these early morning wake-ups to continue to happen. You are teaching your baby’s natural circadian rhythm that this is the new normal wake-up and they will continue to wake up at that time. It is very similar to adults, if we wake up at a certain time each morning for work, we will most likely wake-up at that time on the weekend as our bodies are used to waking up at that time. Treat these early morning wake-ups the same as you would as if it was the middle of the night. You want to let your baby know that it is still night-time and they need to go back to sleep. 

Gro Clock: 

This can be very helpful for toddlers, to see when it is time to wake up in the morning. Ideally keeping the room dark, with no night light overnight and having the gro clock change to the colour green when it’s time to get out of bed. If you need to use a night light make sure it is red or orange in colour so it does not affect the melatonin production. 

You will set a goal time for your child, discuss how the gro clock works, that they need to stay in their bed until that time. Start with an achievable time and slowly push the time 10 minutes later each day until you reach your ultimate goal wake up time. 

How to handle early morning wake ups: 

We want to re correct their circadian rhythm and get their body used to sleep until a later time. It will take more time to correct if it has been going on longer, so be patient. 

Treat these early morning wake ups like you would if it was a middle of the night wake up. 

After 5:30/6am going into the room too frequently can be overstimulating and make it harder for your child to go back to sleep. At this point, I want you to wait 10-15 minutes. If they are happy or content after this time, I would leave them in their crib or bed until desired wake up time. If they are crying and upset after the 10-15 minutes then I would go in and rock them back to sleep or hold them in the dark until their desired wake up time. If they are in a bed, I would sit beside the bed (not in the bed) until their desired wake up time or their gro clock turns green.

Conclusion

Please know that correcting early morning wake-ups does not happen overnight. It takes time and some figuring out to learn why they are having them in the first place. 

When trying a new schedule, give it 3-5 days before you make any new changes. It takes about 2 weeks for your baby to change their circadian rhythm.

If you need help with sleep-training or correcting these early morning wake-ups, please don’t hesitate to contact me for a consultation. We will create a sleep plan that will work for your child, troubleshoot and help correct this issue to get your child’s sleep back on track so you can all get a good night's sleep.