Ending Early Morning Wakes

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Nothing makes you more exhausted than beginning your day at 4:30am, am I right? You feel like you finally got to sleep and then your little one wakes up before the crack of dawn ready for the day. Cue ALL. THE. COFFEE.

Luckily, I’ve got just the thing to help you figure out what’s driving that early bird to get up and what you can do about it!

First off, know that 6-8 am is considered a biologically appropriate time so anytime before 6 a.m. would be considered an early wake. Having continuous early wakes is an indicator that something is off for your little ones’ sleep, something that we need to fix asap!

If that’s you, there’s a few things that you can look at to troubleshoot why:

• Is babe overtired from either being awake too long before bed or not enough cumulative sleep in the day?
  Look at the suggested wake times for your baby’s age. No babies aren’t robots so we can’t predict exactly what each babies specific wake time is going to be but on average, the wake times in this guide are a great place to start. Take a look and see if your babes wake time is off by more than 15 minutes and if it is, try to change it up. Start with trying the time listed in the guide for one week. Then adjust from there accordingly if it still hasn’t fixed the issue. When you make changes, you’re going to adjust in 10-to-15-minute increments and leave it there for 1 week to allow your baby’s body clock to catch up and for them to adjust to the new time.

• Is babes’ bedtime too late?
  Babies have an ideal bedtime based on their circadian rhythm and the balance of hormones within their body. Melatonin is our bodies sleepy hormone and cortisol, a stress hormone that counteracts melatonin. Simply put, when one is being produced the other one is not. Ideal bedtime for your baby lines up with their peak in melatonin production, if we keep our babes up beyond this time, their melatonin production starts to dip and cortisol production will start to increase, leading to an overtired baby. This often looks like a babe who has a “second wind” and isn’t tired at all. When we put our babes down and an ideal bedtime, this doesn’t allow that increase in cortisol production to kick in meaning melatonin takes the main stage in their body and will allow them to get through to the 11-12-hour mark of overnight sleep.

• The environment- Is it ideal for sleep?
  Everyone, regardless of age, sleeps better in an ideal sleep environment. The big three contributors to an ideal environment are light, sound, and temperature.

1. Any type of sound, even if we don’t think it would affect us while we’re awake can wake us up while we’re sleeping. This includes things like the furnace turning on, a floorboard creaking, dogs barking outside or a neighbor turning on their vehicle early in the morning. For this, I recommend using a white noise machine to drown out the highs and lows of the surrounding sounds. When using a white noise machine, you want the sound to be consistent, because just like an increase in sound can wake us up, the absence of sound can also wake us up. This means no timers! We also want to use a sound that is consistent, so ideally no lullabies, rainforest or any other settings other than white noise, pink noise, or brown noise.
2. An ideal for temperature for sleep is between 18 to 21 degrees Celsius but I’ve also found that the mid to lower end of this range helps babies sleep even better. You also want to consider clothing when it comes to temperature. Using pajamas and coverings that are made from natural fabrics will allow for breathability and for heat to escape which is an important factor in preventing overheating, a risk factor for sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS). This can be mitigated by choosing fabrics such as cotton, bamboo, or merino wool. Fabrics to stay away from would include polyester or synthetic fleece. Considering the TOG or thermal overall grade of a garment is also important, at the ideal temperature you would want to use a sleep sack or blanket (if babe is old enough, over 1 year) that is around the middle of the range, so around 1.0 TOG. If it’s hotter, using a TOG’s that are rated lower (less warmth) is more beneficial. This would include TOGs of around 0.2 or 0.5. And naturally, if it’s colder or on the cool end in your baby sleep space it would be important to use a TOG on the higher end at 2.0/2.5-3.0.
3. The biggest environmental factor that I see impacting early wakes is light. To test light in your baby’s sleep space, close the room up as you would when they go to sleep and let your eyes adjust by sitting there for about 5 minutes. Hold your hand in front of your face, if you can see your hand, it’s too bright. Invest in some blackout blinds that don’t let any light bleeds come through, my favorite are BlackoutEZ Blinds. You can also use electrical tape on lights on any type of monitors or angle it so that the light is not shining towards your babe. Placing a fitted-single sheet around the door and putting a rolled-up towel on the floor outside of the door to prevent light from seeping in from the door is another trick to darken the room. For all of my favorite blackout solutions, check out this blog post- Best Blackout Solutions for Every Situation.

Sleep requirements are met- Is your babe getting too much daytime sleep?
As babies age, their daily sleep requirements naturally lessen. It’s a slow transition so often times, we don’t notice it. If your baby is meeting their total daily required sleep by 4 a.m., there’s going to be no more pressure to keep them sleeping if they wake up at that time. Using the guide below, figure out what the total required sleep is for your baby’s age within a 24-hour period. Then, subtract their ideal overnight sleep, whether it be 11 or 12 hours from that total and whatever is left is their maximum daytime sleep. Compare that to how much your baby is currently sleeping during the day time to see if there’s an inconsistency and you need to start to cap their naps. Do remember that this is an average so your baby’s needs may be slightly different. If you notice any inconsistencies, you can try to cap one nap 15 minutes earlier for a week to see if this helps. I recommend starting with the last nap. If it doesn’t make a difference try capping the first one as well.

• Is it simply a habit that keeps getting reinforced?
  Oftentimes what can happen is that a baby can start to wake up early for one of the previously mentioned reasons but you’re exhausted and a bit groggy so you pull them into bed with you just so you can all get a few more zzz’s. Sound about right? This can lead to your baby becoming excited for those early morning snuggles, feed, tv, play or whatever else that happens at this time. So when your babe wakes at this time, they begin to get excited and choose to wake up fully instead of falling back asleep as they would previously have tried. If this is what has happened in your situation, remove that fun thing that is happening. Start the morning with something that’s less enjoyable, for example, changing their diaper first. This will make the early wake-up time a little bit less appealing. Also, refrain from bringing them into your bed even after you’ve done a diaper change if you want to avoid bedsharing.

Here’s a few more actionable steps that you can take to resolve early morning wakes:

• If they’re happy, leave them until their ideal wake time.

• Revert back to your sleep training method (if you started with one) to get your little one back to sleeping until they’re ideal wake up time.

• Implement a toddler clock if your babe is 18 months or more. Communicate openly with them what it means and slowly work them up to their ideal wake up time to allow them to feel success with it and stay excited. I recommend slowly increasing the amount of time that you’re asking them to stay in bed by about five minutes a day to allow them to get used to it and prevent them from feeling overwhelmed by having to stay in bed for long periods of time. Here’s the toddler clock that my daughter has. 

• Set their first nap based on their ideal wake up time rather than when they actually woke up. This is to prevent a shift of their body’s cycle earlier which would create continued early wake-ups. Yes, they will be overtired for their first nap but it’s the trade-off to breaking free of those early morning wake-ups. During that first wake time when you’re trying to stretch them to their regular nap time, this is a good time to do something fun or unusual, introduce a new toy, play one-on-one, let them play with water or any other sensory play, give them foods that they really enjoy, go outside, whatever your little one LOVES! Do try to avoid car rides, carriers or strollers as these are places where babes often fall asleep! 

• Do not let your baby sleep in if they woke up early and went back to sleep. This causes an imbalance in their naps and wake times leading to an imbalance of sleep pressure and continued sleep issues. If this does happen and they’re lacking sleep, feel free to put them to bed a bit earlier than normal but no earlier than 6 p.m..
  
  
  The most important thing to remember with early wakes is that this is one of the sleep issues that takes the longest to resolve (sorry! I know you didn’t want to hear that). Resetting your baby’s body clock takes time so don’t expect results right away. Early wakes can take up to a couple weeks to start to work its way out. Keep perspective, don’t look at your child’s sleep on a day-to-day basis, I find this causes increased frustration for parents and caregivers, and makes them feel like they need to make a change which actually removes the consistency, exactly what your little one needs to reset that circadian rhythm. A better perspective is to look at it as a general trend, for example, this week did they start to wake up a little bit later than last week? Then the week before? This is a much more realistic way to look at things and to preventing any added stress on your part.

If you feel like you have no idea where to start, reach out to me! We can try to get things figured out with a 30 min Ask-Me-Anything call if your little one is otherwise an independent sleeper. If they aren’t or their early wakes are combined with other sleep issues, we can book a free Sleep Assessment Call to discuss your specific situation, all of the factors that are contributing to your little one’s sleep issues and how I can help you to get your little one’s sleep back on track!

Let’s get some sleep!

Jessica