I often talk to tired mamas getting up as early as 5 am everyday, but not by choice! They have a little human alarm clock that is very predictable and set to go off at the same time everyday before dawn. Does this sound like your situation? So what do you do? Other than hook up a coffee IV and push through your day exhausted?!

Well, let me explain to you why early wake-ups occur in babies and toddlers and give you some tips on how to prevent them. Firstly, I just want to clarify what I mean by “early morning” wake-up, early morning wakings take place between 4-6am. After 6am is a biologically normal time for wake-ups in babies and toddlers, 6-7am is actually an ideal time (sorry mamas!).

Early morning wake-ups are one of the biggest sleep culprits and they affect children of all ages. The fact is that we ALL struggle with early morning wake-ups, even adults. We as adults also wake more frequently and easily between 4-6am however, adults are so good at putting themselves back to sleep that we hardly notice them.

It all starts with understanding the biology behind early morning wake-ups. In my past blogs I’ve talked about sleep drive, circadian rhythms, hormone fluctuations, sleep environment and temperature. This can all be used to understand why our bodies easily wake up between 4-6 am and it’s actually biologically harder to get back to sleep at these times.

Consider this, when you go to sleep at night your body is primed for sleep, it produces the perfect conditions. Your melatonin levels rise, seratonin and cortisol levels drop and your sleep drive is strong (the pressure that builds over time by being awake). You feel tired. the conditions are perfect. and sleep comes easily.

Babies (and adults) achieve their deepest sleep from the hours of 7pm to about 12am, then sleep cycles begin to get lighter. See chart below and notice that along with multiple wake-ups, sleep cycles after midnight start to stay on the light side. You can clearly see the effects of melatonin levels dropping as we approach the morning hours and body temperature rises. The same factors that put us to sleep are now waking us up!

In addition to this, our sleep drive is now low, we’ve spent all night sleeping and so that sleep pressure that put us to sleep at the beginning of the night is weak. To make matters worse any source of light, even a ray of sun coming through the window will wake us up. We still NEED to sleep but environmental and biological factors make that harder at this time.

Having said all this, all is not lost! you don’t have to drag yourself out of bed every morning stumble to your coffee machine and reluctantly start your day. Here are a few tips that might help :)

Sleep Environment - I know I keep repeating the same things but mamas we truly underestimate the power of a good sleep environment. Black out blinds will be your best investment! I promise! Your babies room should be DARK, like I mean I can’t see my hand in front of my face dark. Any little ray of light shining in at this time can cause a full on wake-up.

Early Bedtime - Again, I continue to preach early bedtimes. Over-tiredness is one the biggest causes of early wake-ups. Overtired babies produce more cortisol, when melatonin levels drop this cortisol spikes more than usual and causes early morning wake-ups. Check that your wake windows before bed (and all day) are not too long.

Work on reducing cat napping- babies who catnap are often over-tired. Cat napping does not affect night sleep at first but eventually over tiredness catches up to you and can manifest in the form of early morning wakings. Work on lengthening those naps (see blog on naps for tips).

Watch out for baby sleeping too much during the day - Long naps are wonderful. Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE them. HOWEVER, if baby is getting most of their sleep during the day then it’s likely that long stretches at night will not be possible. Your baby just won’t be tired. Adjust naps and if baby naps for more than two hours during the day, I would limit those naps to 1.5-2 hours each.

Keep first nap of the day far from night sleep - What I mean by this is that, often early morning wake-ups wreak havoc on your babies daytime schedule. So for example, if you’re going by wake windows; if your baby is up at 4:30am and wake window is 2.5 hours technically nap #1 is due at 7am? right? NOPE. You might be tempted to put baby to nap even before you hit that wake window time because they might seem sleepy but here’s the thing, a nap that is too close to night sleep will become an extension of night sleep and will reinforce early morning wakings. This is the only time (one of the only times) where I will tell you to stretch that awake time past what’s recommended (it will only take a few days-1 week). Start awake time based on DESIRED wake-up time and not ACTUAL wake-up time. So if baby wakes at 4:30am and your desired wake-up time is 6am (lets not go crazy and have it much past 7am), then nap #1 should be 2.5 hours later (assuming this is your baby’s age appropriate wake window) so a 8:30am nap. **Remember I talked about ideal biological times for sleep in my last post? well 9am is one of them ;) If you are shaking your head, “my baby will not make it for that long awake, Lily I thought you always advocate to prevent over-tiredness”? I DO. In this case however, stretching that wake time by 10 minute each day will shift shedules and prevent the morning wakings. It’s a transitional phase and won’t last forever. If you’re still having trouble with this talk to me about how to introduce a temporary bridge nap to get you to that desired nap #1 time (after 6 months nap one should not be before 8:30/9am).

Don’t reinforce wake-ups - Our biological clocks are established by food, light and social interaction (also known as Zeitgebers-external cues that entrain our biological clocks). If baby wakes at 5am and you turn on the lights and you (reluctantly) start your day, you are telling baby “Yes it’s morning, time to start the day.” A few mornings like this and it becomes a natural wake up, our bodies are designed to wake up at the same time each day even on weekends (sorry again!) Treat early morning wake-ups just like night time wake-ups, lights off, little stimulation. If you think baby is hungry and you feed that also will encourage wake-ups as baby will expect to eat at this time everyday and will become hungry. Now please don’t take this the wrong way, every baby has their own nutritional needs and babies at different ages need different amount of feedings (ie. babies under 6 months still generally need a feed at night). What I mean by this is, evaluate your babies nutritional needs and make sure you are fuelling that tank all day with proper meals (if on solids) and feeds so that they are comfortable and not hungry at night. If you’re baby is eating well during the day and following their growth curve it’s probably unlikely that they are hungry at night/early morning (Please note this is for babies over 6 months). We as parents often go directly to “baby is awake, they must be hungry”. Totally understandable and i’ve done it too. But that ‘s not always the case and by feeding them it reduces how much they will eat during the day, they will then become reliant on getting those calories in at night. It’s called reverse cycling.

Work on self soothing - This is the best skill we can teach our babies. Helping them learn how to soothe back to sleep independently. They might use a pacifier or lovey or their hands, that’s great. We can’t always prevent night time or early wakings but by having these skills, baby will turn around and go back to sleep and you won’t even notice! If you are OK with soothing them back to sleep then don’t worry about this part. If you are struggling however, having to wake up as well. Helping them learn ways to fall back asleep will help you with any kinds of wake-ups in the future.

A note about toddlers* Toddlers are notorious for waking early in the mornings with LOTS of energy! There are many ways to work with toddlers that helps them understand what to do when they wake up and the rest of the house is sleeping. In a future blog post I will talk about the three magic strategies to help toddlers love sleep, but hint they involve: The three R’s - Rules, Rewards and Role Play. I would also look into investing in a grow clock. Set a wake-up time and make sure your toddler knows what that is. For example: at our house wake-up is 7am and if our little guy wakes earlier he can play quietly in his crib (you can’t FORCE them to go back to sleep) until mama comes in to get him. Make sure their crib/bed is a pleasant place to be and that they have a pleasant association with it (more on how to achieve this in my next blog post).

If you need help applying any of these tips or for other proven methods to solve early morning wake-ups connect with me at www.lilbabysleep.com/contact-me. I’m here. I’ll help you conquer those early morning wakings so that your human alarm clock, hits snooze all on their own!