If your baby is waking up at 5am and won’t go back to sleep without a feed continue reading, this is for you.

5am wake ups are notorious, they are hard and they can wreak havoc on your day.

The last thing we need is to feel exhausted by 9am and then have to endure the entire day knowing you will be up again early tomorrow. Torture for both you and your little one.

Even if your little one goes back to sleep after that feed, as they get older it’s likely that this will cement that wake up and that they will be up for the day at this time. READY TO PARTY 🙀

So how do we get out of this cycle and why is it happening?!

Now whether that feed is necessary is really dependent on age and the amount of calories being offered at night. For example, a newborn probably still needs this feed depending on weight and typically, we see this feed last until about 5 months. It’s usually the second last feed to be dropped and used when your baby still needs two feeds a night (again dependent on age and weight).

However, many parents can get stuck with this feed and the reason is simple.

5am is a very HARD time to go back to sleep without assistance. We are looking at a time when melatonin levels have dropped significantly, body temperature is rising (our bodies are warming up) and cortisol and adrenaline (the stress hormones that also play the role of waking us up) are rising in the body. Essentially, humans have a hard time putting themselves to sleep at this time and this can be exacerbated if your little one’s schedule is off and they are not getting enough day sleep or too much or sleep pressure is off. There are many factors that can contribute to early. mornings and understanding them will help avoid the difficulty at this time in the early morning plus if you’re baby cannot put themselves to sleep at the beginning of the night when we have a strong drive to sleep, they absolutely won’t be able to do it at 5am when they have to work extra hard.

How to tell if your baby is hungry?

One of parents biggest concerns is that they don’t want their baby to go hungry. I am by no means recommending that BUT if your little one can make it to 5am then likely they can make it to 6:30 or 7am.

If your baby is showing signs of hunger here are a few questions to ask yourself:

When did they last eat? Has it been at least 4-6 hrs for babies 4 months and up? Are they waking up frequently to eat?
Are they gulping (eating) or just slow sucking (soothing)?
Do they fall asleep while eating? They should be going back down wide awake. If they NEED to eat to fall asleep that is a sign that it’s an association rather than hunger (this is not applicable for newborns 0-3 months).

Why push out feeds and move calories to the day?

As your baby gets older we want to start moving (not taking away) calories toward the daytime, this is so if they have started solids and are older than 8 months they can get most of their nutrients from food. After this, food becomes key in getting them the vitamin and minerals that they need to sustain growth, and iron becomes very important.

How can the 5am feed be reinforcing the early wake up?

Our bodies are looking for cues from their environment to signal that it’s time to wake up for the day, these are called Zeitgerbers.

The three cues are: FOOD, light and social interaction.

This is your body’s natural alarm clock. If there is a consistent cue at 5am, then their body will sync to that time and it can cause a habitual wake up.

So what can we do to shift this feed?

The answer is to wait as long as you can to feed. You can try for a few days to assist back to sleep in any other way and feed at wake up time or slowly start pushing out that feed later and later. This will help push calories to your day and you’ll find your baby starts to eat more. Then you can use the technique of your choice to re-settle at that time (find out more about how to get a plan with a settling technique you feel comfortable using).

Moving this feed is not only going to reduce the dependence of calories at night (which wakes up the body more because it needs to warm up to digest) but it helps you start to teach your baby how to re-settle instead on NEEDING the feed to go back to sleep.

Now, this is just part of the puzzle. Early mornings can happen for a variety of reasons. You have to have a full plan to assess why they are happening and implement some solutions. Here is a End Early Mornings mini-course that will give you all of these solutions and a game plan IF your baby is already putting themselves to sleep and this is just your last issue to fix.

If your baby is relying on feeds to sleep throughout the night then your solution is HERE.

Book a call with me here so we can see what the best fit is for you and get you started and sleeping!

Happy sleeping (In) xx

Lily

**this is not medical advice, please consult with your doctor to ensure that your baby is ready to drop feeds at night.