Tips To Resolve Early Rising

- Laura Thompson | 21st May 2021 -

Children waking too early is something I think every single parent has experienced and if they haven’t … they will! It is one of the most common challenges and often it’s something parents accept as ‘the way it is’. If your child is waking consistently before 6am I think there is something you can do about it. So let’s talk about why it happens and how we can resolve it!

What is early rising?

Let’s just clear up what early rising actually is (in my opinion!) The 7-7 ideal schedule is talked about all the time, I think just because those are easy numbers to work with! Let’s be realistic though! We can expect most babies and children to sleep around 11-12 hours a night (check the sleep needs chart here for your babies age!) so a 7am start to the day may just be a little too much to expect! I say anything before 6am is an early rise and most commonly these early start are happening 4-6am. We’ll talk about all the different reasons this could be happening but it’s important to know that sleep between these hours is the lightest, the sleep hormone melatonin is at its lowest and our bodies are preparing to start the day. So it’s really easy to be woken at this time and it’s really hard to fall back to sleep again!

Reasons and what to do …

 Reason #1 – Environmental

Remember I said it’s really easy to be roused between the hours of 4-6am? There could be something happening in your child’s environment that is enough to wake them. Light entering the room and external noises such as the heating clunking on or neighbours leaving early for work being the biggest culprits.

The Solution?

• Make that room dark … I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, light can enter the eye even when they are closed and that signals to the brain it’s time to wake up. Get the blackout blinds and make sure they are working really effectively!

• Use white noise to block out external noises or eliminate the noises entirely if they are within your control.

Reason #2 – Cold Or Hungry

Again as sleep gets lighter your child may start to feel cold or hungry as they come out of their deeper sleep and that’s going to wake them up!

The Solution?

• Make sure your child is in the correct tog swaddle, sleep bag or duvet for the time of year. Swaddles are great until around 8 weeks or once babies are rolling. Then I recommend moving to a sleep bag suitable for your child’s weight and really I would keep them in a sleep bag as long as possible because they can’t kick it off! You can safely transition to a duvet from 2 years (my 2 year is still in a sleep bag and I have no plans to give her a duvet yet!!) and once you have made this transition make sure their PJs are warm enough for the temperature and consider popping a pair of socks on in colder months.

• For young babies who wake at this time genuinely hungry treat it as a night feed and get them back to sleep. If they are truly waking for hunger they will go back to sleep after a feed! If they don’t settle there may be another factor at play.

• For older babies and toddlers consider introducing a bedtime snack if dinner is too long before bedtime. A banana, slice of wholegrain toast or bowl of porridge are good options.

Reason #3 – First Nap Of The Day Is Too Early

Child wakes at 5am, they are exhausted by 8am and need a nap. Body learns to continue to wake at 5am because it will get more sleep in a few hours – cycle continues!

The Solution?

This is a really tough cycle to break because pushing them to a later nap could cause over tiredness!

• For babies under 10 months you can offer a ‘rescue nap’ at around 7am for just 10 minutes. No they won’t like being woken after 10 minutes but it should be just enough to take the edge off that tiredness and see them through to their regular wake time to keep the rest of the day on track.

• For older babies and children start to push that nap gradually later. If they need a nap at 8am right now start at 8:15am and move it slowly until it is sitting at a more appropriate time.

Reason #4 – Over Tiredness

Nope, its very rarely the case that putting your child to bed an hour later will mean they sleep in an hour later. In fact you may even find they wake up even earlier and/or have a really disturbed night.

If children are napping poorly or have a wake window that is too long between the last nap and bedtime these will cause over tiredness and you can read more on that here but surmise to say over tiredness plays havoc with sleep and early rising is one of the symptoms.

The solution?

• Work on improving your child’s naps so that they are getting enough well timed naps for their age throughout the day. The sleep needs chart in this blog will help you with that.

• Bring bedtime earlier. As much as 30-60 minutes earlier depending on what you are dealing with. Do this for 5-7 days to start to see the impact!

Reason #5 – Habit And Reinforcement

How long has your child’s early rising been going on for and what happens when they wake up at 5 or 5:30am? Do they start the day, have some milk or breakfast, watch TV or come into your bed for cuddles?

All of these things could be reinforcing the early waking for your child, the bodies natural body clock is a powerful thing! If your child’s body get used to having milk at 5am their metabolism kicks in and soon they start to need that every day. Likewise if you let your child watch some cartoons so that you can catch a few more minutes snoozing (I get it, I’ve been there!) your child’s brain will start to seek that visual stimulation in those early hours… every single day.

 The Solution?

• Treat any waking before 6am as a night waking – respond in the same way every single day. Make it neutral, boring and non-stimulating. You’re trying to break a habit here so you need to stay consistent and give it some time and patience.

• When it is time to start the day do the ‘dramatic wake up’! You need to make a really clear distinction between your ‘night mode’ and ‘day mode’. Be happy and animated and get some sunlight in the room.

• For children around 18m+ you could start to use a toddler clock. I like Classens Kid Sleep clock because it is really simple to understand and has no bright blue lights! Explain the system to your child ‘When you see X it’s time to sleep, when you see Y it’s time to wake up’. Try setting the clock for their usual wake time for a night or two and HEAP ON the praise then nudge that time by 5 minutes every couple of day until you get to 6am (or later if you’re lucky!)

If early rising continues to be a challenge for you my ‘toddler troubleshoot’ call might be just the thing to get things back on track for you or book a free call to see how else I can support your family!