How to Prevent & Correct Early morning wake-ups
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While sleeping in until noon may be a thing of the past once you have kids, that doesn’t mean you have to accept 5:00am as your new wake-up call! Even starting in the newborn days, your baby or child needs a full night’s sleep to be able to function and thrive. A well-rested little one is better able to learn new skills and be overall happier and healthier as they are not suffering from overtiredness day in and day out. Not to mention, you as their parent need your sleep to be your best self just as much as they do!
If your little one is consistently waking before 6am, here’s three ways to prevent and correct early morning wake-ups:
Make sure bedtime is at the right time for your little one’s age.
Newborns thrive with a later bedtime as 10 hours of sleep overnight (including feeds) is about what they are capable of. Meaning that if bedtime is at 7pm, it’s no surprise that they are up and ready to face the world at 5am. Therefore, aim for a bedtime between 8-9pm so that morning wake up time falls between 6-7am.
This changes once your little one reaches the four month mark and goes through the notorious four month sleep regression. Now, your little one is capable of, and needs, 11-12 hours of sleep overnight (even if that includes a feed as recommended by your pediatrician). However, if bedtime is too late, and they become overtired, an early morning wake-up is almost guaranteed. Many parents first thought when dealing with an early morning wake is to put their little one down later for bedtime so that they wake-up later. Unfortunately, often the opposite happens and your overtired kiddo is up and at ‘em before 6am.
On the other hand, if you are putting your little one down too early for bedtime, an early morning wake-up can happen just as easily. If bedtime is at 6pm, then technically 5am is the 11 hour mark, and therefore fair game as a wake-up time. Make sure you are following an age-appropriate schedule for your little one so that they are not going down undertired or overtired at bedtime.
If you’re not sure what your little one’s schedule should look like, head to my FREE schedule generator to find out what time nap and bedtime should be for your kiddo’s age!
A dark room is extremely important to ensuring your little one has the tools to set them up for success come morning time.
When sunlight hits our eyes, our brain is triggered to stop producing melatonin, the hormone that helps us fall asleep and stay asleep. Especially in the summer months when the sun is streaming into your little one’s room, sleeping in can be difficult. Therefore, blackout curtains will allow your little to not only be able to settle at bedtime even if it’s still light out (again avoiding a too-late bedtime and thus overtiredness), but they will also be gifted with a totally dark room to stay asleep in the early morning until they’ve hit the 11-12 hour mark.
Here are a few of my favorite blackout solutions for your little one’s sleep space:
The Slumberpod - use code LALUNE for $20 off!
Finally, is your little one able to put themselves back to sleep on their own?
Sleep is lightest in the early morning hours, meaning that if your baby or child doesn’t know how to fall asleep on their own, they will most likely wake while in a light stage of sleep and look for your help to get them back to a deep stage of sleep. Hence why many parents notice their little one gets a good stretch of sleep in the first part of the night but once 4am hits, they are up every hour. Teaching your child how to fall back to sleep on their own will allow them to consolidate sleep in the early morning hours and thus get them (and you!) the full night’s rest that you need.
Teaching your child a new skill is all about practice and consistency.
Give the above suggestions a try and keep in mind that early morning wake-ups can take some time to reverse. Don’t get discouraged if you don’t see progress for a few days.
However, if you are going on multiple days or even weeks or months of early wakings, it’s time to make some other changes! There is SO much that goes into independent sleep and only implementing one or two pieces to the puzzle may not be doing the trick. If you have questions about your little one, don’t hesitate to reach out to me.
Feel free to head to my website to learn more about how I work with families to guide their little ones to falling asleep and staying asleep all on their own. I also offer free assessment calls so if you’d like to chat further about your little one, you are more than welcome to schedule one. Better sleep is possible!
