Early Morning Wake Ups
Oh man, early morning wake ups. One of the most common sleep struggles parents have AND one of the most difficult to troubleshoot and fix. Let’s see if I can make it a little easier for you.
If someone told me when my oldest was a baby that his early mornings were not actually considered early wake ups, it would have saved me A LOT of time, energy, stress, and anxiety trying to fix them. So let’s start there.
What exactly is considered an early morning wake up?
In order to be considered an early morning wake up, it has to fit ALL of the criteria below:
It is earlier than 6 AM
It is MORE THAN 30 minutes before the desired wake up time
The child did not fall back asleep
The child did not get at least 10.5 hours of sleep
The child has not met their average sleep needs within 24 hours
So, when I kept putting my baby to bed at 6PM and wondering why he kept waking up at 5AM because the internet kept telling me that if he woke up early an early bedtime would fix overtiredness and he’d give me 12 (or more) hours the next day, it would’ve been incredibly helpful to have this information.
But what if it actually IS an early morning wake up? How do we know what’s causing it and how do we fix it?
First, assess the situation. If it truly is an early wake up, how long has it been going on and what else is happening in your child’s life? Maybe they’re learning a new skill and they just need more practice time during the day to get through the night. Maybe they have an ear infection. Take a look at the whole picture, and definitely give it at least a few days to run its course before intervening. Sometimes, intervention can make things worse!
Okay, you’ve determined it’s an early morning, and it’s been going on more than 5 ish days. You decide you need to make a change, but how do you know what’s causing it to make the necessary changes?
Different reasons for early mornings and how to fix them:
Overtired
If your child’s mood isn’t great during the day, they’re waking up soon after falling asleep or having unexplained night wakings earlier in the night or throughout the night, or if they’re unhappy in those early morning hours, overtiredness may be the culprit. You may also log sleep and find that your child's total sleep in 24 hours has decreased. They likely need more sleep.
How to fix it: My number one tip in this case is an early bedtime. This will help regulate hormones to get out of the cycle overtiredness can create in the body. On top of this, you can find other ways to add sleep throughout the day if necessary with nap times and wake windows, but the early bedtime is a great start to regulate and get back on track.
Undertired
If your child is generally happy during the day and content during those early morning hours, it may be more likely that they’re undertired. They may also have unexplained night wakings, but they usually happen later in the night and can last a while, (see: Split Nights), but baby is still pretty content and truly doesn’t seem tired. You may also notice that naps are nice and long, and baby is flexible about timing and location of naps.
How to fix it: This is often an easier fix than overtiredness, which is great, but you have to be prepared to wake your baby up! Less daytime sleep will lead to more night time sleep. Start by increasing the wake windows between naps, and then start to cap the naps by waking 15-30 minutes earlier. This will begin to redistribute the sleep to happen at night instead of during the day. And if they do wake up in the middle of the night for a while but fall back asleep, make sure you still wake at your desired wake up time to avoid a split night cycle.
Dependent Sleep Associations
If your child isn’t going to sleep independently, they will likely need your help to get back to sleep if they wake up overnight. In the middle of the night when sleep hormones are present and sleep pressure is still high, it’s easier to help them back to sleep quickly. However, in the early morning hours melatonin dips, and they’ve already gotten a good chunk of sleep, so with less sleep pressure it may be more difficult to get them back down.
How to fix it: Usually, the only way to fix this is to teach your child to fall asleep independently. This means they aren’t feeding or rocking to sleep, and they are alone and awake when you put them down, fully putting themselves to sleep.
Environment
There are three key aspects to an ideal sleep environment, and if any of these is off it CAN cause an early morning wake up (or make it more difficult for baby to get back to sleep during a natural wake up).
Darkness - if the sunlight is peaking in even just a tiny bit, this can cause an early morning wake up, especially during the months with longer daylight hours. Sunlight regulates our sleep hormones, so that early exposure to sunlight can actually become a daily issue that has to be re regulated.
Temperature - the ideal temperature for sleep is between 68-72 degrees fahrenheit. If you notice that your baby is too hot or too cold upon wake up, it may be causing those early mornings. Additionally, our body temperature rises as we’re waking up, so if they’re already warm their body may think it’s wake up time! Remember - always check babies neck, belly, or back - the hands and feet don’t get the same circulation.
White noise - if the outside sounds aren’t blocked out, it can cause early morning wake ups. Maybe there’s traffic or birds chirping outside. Maybe a parent is getting up earlier and moving around the house. We really want to block out any sensory stimulation in those early hours when melatonin is already dipping.
How to fix it: Change the environment! If this is the issue, it’s an easy fix! Make it darker, check the temperature and make sure your baby is appropriately dressed, or turn up that sound machine!
Early wake up/early bedtime cycle
If you’ve followed me for some time, you know that early bedtime is my thing. I love it for so many reasons. However, when my son was a baby, I loved it a little too much. This, my friends, was the cause of his early morning wake ups (and by the way, it still is, but I’ve come to prefer the 7 PM bedtime and early wake up even for my 6 year old). Every day he woke up early and took short naps, and every day I thought this was happening because he was overtired, so every night I continued to put him to sleep at 6, and repeat.
So let’s take a step back and look at those criteria for an early wake up:
It is earlier than 6 AM - CHECK (it was 5 am, sometimes a little earlier or later)
It is MORE THAN 30 minutes before the desired wake up time - CHECK (I wanted 6/6:30 AM, 7 was a pipe dream)
The child did not fall back asleep - CHECK (he screamed his damn head off)
The child did not get at least 10.5 hours of sleep - NOT CHECK. He slept 6 PM - 5 AM ish. Sometimes less, sometimes more, but always between 10.5-11.5 hours a night, and according to Nanit, he DID NOT MOVE for 97% of those hours. He was simply getting enough good, restorative sleep.
The child has not met their average sleep needs within 24 hours - NOT CHECK - but I really didn’t understand this. How could my little preemie need less than average sleep? It just didn’t make sense. BUT it was also true. He was meeting his needs, so the early wake ups weren’t going to go away without a later bedtime.
So I was putting him to bed early, he was waking up early, he was napping early. Since I thought he was overtired I wasn’t stretching his wake windows, leading to short naps, leading me to drop his naps way later than average, perpetuating the early bedtime/early wake up cycle.
How to fix it: It is not a quick fix, but it’s definitely fixable. Start with the first light exposure of the day and shift it gradually. This is what most regulates our circadian rhythm, so if your wake up is at 5, keep him in his room in the dark until 5:15, and then start the wake window from 5:15 instead of 5, pushing the first nap a little later that day, and so on, taking you to a bedtime that’s 15 minutes later. Do this for 2-3 days, and then shift another 15 minutes later for the next 2-3 days. Continue this process until you’ve reached your desired wake up time.
Early bedtimes are tricky. As you can see there are so many causes and so many fixes, but it’s often not a quick fix. This is something that I still continuously work on for myself, so feel free to reach out if you want me to work on it for you too!