Early Morning Riser: How to Tackle Early Waking
So what counts as an ‘early rise’?
We all know that little one's have a tendency to wake up early, but what really counts as an early wake?
In the sleep world, an early rise would be any time before 6am. Every human, whether small or fully grown, is either an early bird or a night owl. We have our own body clocks that govern our sleep wake cycle. For some children, they will always wake early, it'‘s just in their nature. This would be any time after 6am. Before then? You have got an early riser who might benefit from some tweaks to get them past 6am!
Working out the reasons for early rising
Early waking can be caused by a multitude of things. Below are some areas to address first, to see if you can change up their habit of waking early. If you need help with average sleep totals for each month of age up to 12 months, you can grab my 0-12 month sleep schedule guide here.
Too much daytime sleep
Always bear in mind how much sleep your little one is getting in each 24 hour period. If they have had very successful naps, what can sometimes happen, is when they reach the 5am mark, they run out of sleep pressure and feel ready to tackle the day ahead. Melatonin is very low at this time so there is little hormonal support for more sleep in the early hours of the morning. Check your little one’s nap total against the average for their age. If you feel it is on the higher end of average, I’d try capping their naps to reduce the total sleep during the day, so hopefully they make up for it with more sleep overnight.
Bedtime too early
If your little one is going to bed quite early, after successful naps during the day, they may also reach their optimal 24 hour sleep total in the early hours of the morning. Some children are not able to sleep for 12 hours overnight, for some, 10-11 hours is more suitable. So if they are going to sleep at 6:30pm, they will wake at 5:30am after 11 hours of restorative sleep. TRy pushing bedtime back clsoer to 7pm or even later. Make sure you do this slowly, 15 minutes every few days to gradually achieve the later bedtime.
Hunger
Hunger is a big cause of wakes overnight. If your baby is not feeding halfway through the night at say, 1am, they may start to feel hungry in the early hours of the morning. This is particularly typical for distracted babies aged 5-9 months, where the world around them is much more interesting than concentrating on feeding well during the day. Ensure your little one is having adequate feeds during the day, minimising distraction where possible.
Environmental causes
Think about whether an external stimulus is waking your little one at a certain time each morning. Is it a certain noise such as someone’s alarm or the boiler? If so, I recommend using white noise consistently through the night until wake up time to minimise disruptions. Are they getting quite cold or too hot in the morning, causing them to wake up? A simple fix can be putting socks on to prevent heat loss.
Early morning nap
It might be the vicious cycle of early morning wakes, causing the ongoing problem for you. If your little one is waking early, often they have an early morning nap. At this time, they can catch up on the sleep they missed having woken at 5am for example. Therefore meaning more sleep is had during the day, so that at night, they continue to wake early after their 10 or so hours sleep overnight. Try to avoid allowing your little one to have a long morning nap, so not to reinforce the early rising. Cap this nap and instead, encourage a longer afternoon nap.
My approach for tackling the early riser
Now improving your little ones wake up time can sometimes be tricky. You might find that you have tried everything to push them past the 6am mark! After addressing the above causes, ensuring they are having optimal daytime sleep and wake windows, you can try my tactic below.
I advise my clients with early risers to try this simple measure to trick the body clock. Let’s say a 10 month old wakes at 5:15am instead of the aim being 6:00am. What you want to do, is keep them in the sleep environment until the ideal wake up time. So, the blinds remain closed, they are still in their sleeping and ideally, still in their cot until 6am (or your ideal wake up time for them). Give them some quiet toys to play with, eg. a few books. You can stay with them, engaging quietly with them. Sometimes it is difficult to keep them in the cot, that’s ok, instead, sit with them in their nursery until that wake up time. Keep your interactions similar to how you are throughout the night - i.e. quiet, gentle.
Then, once the ideal wake up time is reached, make a big, elaborate ‘good morning’. Open the blinds, say a big good morning and become louder and more animated. Take them out of their sleeping bag and leave their sleep space.
The idea here is that you keep the night time environment up until the time you want them to wake up. So that the following morning, they wake slightly later. I have done this many times with my clients and after a few days, you do start to see the wake up time get later and later.
But what about trying to get to the normal nap time?
Yes, I hear you. A 5am wake, means the first nap of the day will fall earlier as they won’t be able to stay awake for an hour longer than usual. Which means an earlier bedtime and surely another early morning wake! Exactly, the vicious cycle continues!
So, in order to break this, try offering a short nap in the morning to see them through to their usual nap time. A quick 20-30 minute morning nap at say 8am (for a 6/7 month old) or a shorter than normal morning nap for older babies. If you offer too long a morning nap, it can reinforce the early wake in the coming days. Essentially what they do is make up for the early start, by sleeping more in their morning nap, so they get used to this pattern and can therefore adjust to an early rise with a restorative morning nap. Instead, we want a shorter morning nap and a longer restorative middle of the day/lunchtime nap.
Need more help with sleep?
If you feel stuck with your little one’s sleep and you’re not sure how to improve it, I’m here to help.
I have sleep guides that give you knowledge and techniques for common sleep disturbances. Find these here. There’s a whole chapter on addressing early risers in my 6-12 month guide!
I also offer 1:1 sleep support where we work out a plan together to resolve and improve your baby or child’s sleep. For more information click here. For both sleep support packages, I look through a sleep diary that you provide, giving you advice on changes that should be made to the routine. The main difference between both my support packages is the coaching support following the consultation. Most of my clients want to see the changes (because they have tried everything and are exhausted!) so opt for my 2 week coaching support. I’m there each day to support you with the change.
Look here for past client testimonials and feedback.