Early Wakings – Why does my baby keep waking at 5am?

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Are you suffering with early wakings?

Does it feel like they are always awake for the day at 5am and there is no getting your baby back to sleep at the time?

Certainly, one of the most common questions we get asked by social media followers and prospective clients is:  ‘how do I stop early wakings as I am drained with these early starts?’.

When this happens consistently, it’s so tough.

It’s tough for your baby or toddler as it means they are tired for the rest of the day and their routine already begins out of sync.

And it’s tough on you because we all need our wind down time… but you get to the evening and after an early start, you are exhausted yourself and just want to go bed.

Why Are We Having These Early Wakings?

There are a number of reasons which could be causing early wakings for your baby. So let’s go through the most common reasons:      

 

Their Sleep environment Isn’t Optimal

Their sleep environment is often a good place to start when trying to establish what might be causing the early wakings.

Is the room dark all night or does it gradually get lighter as the sun rises?

If so, one of the cheapest and most effective ways to resolve your baby waking early is to install blackout blinds for your baby’s room.

They can be purchased reasonably cheaply and can sometimes be all your infant needs to sleep longer in the mornings.

We are fans of the Tomme Tippee blackout blinds. They aren’t the most pleasing aesthetically but they are highly effective and they are well priced for travelling, or for short to medium term options at home.

Just like for adults, sleep patterns for children are interrupted by light so darkness is critical.

Sticking with the environment, you also need to look at noise.

If their bedrooms are at the front of the house for example, noise from the street will likely to get louder from about 5am as people start commuting.

Other examples of noise could be siblings, pets, trains starting up, or simply the little birdies in the trees outside having a morning natter.

If noise is something that disturbs their sleep it’s ok to use white noise.

Often white noise is seen as a way to get your child to sleep, but after the fourt trimester – where white noise is very useful to help a baby learn to self-soothe – white noise should be used primarily to block out external noise which could wake your baby, rather than as a way of helping them sleep.

Our key tip with white noise is to make sure you invest in a machine that stays on all night.

This is critical otherwise you might find your little one needs you to keep going back in to turn the machine on all night!

In our house, we just use our Alexa machine by asking her to “open white noise”.

You can even do it in whisper mode by whispering to her and she whispers back – very useful when you want to put it on without disturbing the baby!

Your Baby’s Daytime Routine Isn’t Quite Right

This might sound a bit counterintuitive, but the other big driver of early wakings for a baby or toddler is them not getting enough sleep in the day – read here to see how much your baby should approximately be sleeping.

We won’t go into the science of it in this blog, but essentially overtiredness will lead to increased cortisol levels (the ‘awake’ hormone) in your little one’s body leading to them being ready to wake up earlier than they otherwise would.

The reverse is also true – too much day sleep can also contribute to early wakings and it might be a sign that your little one is ready to drop one of their day naps.

However, we find that too much sleep is an issue more applicable to toddlers, as they start to need less day sleep. 

We have lots of suggested day routines on our Instagram page depending on your child’s age – pop over and give us a follow.

Recent Cognitive & Physical Development, or ‘Leaps’

Sometimes it isn’t anything that we can control that leads to our baby waking early in the morning.

Cognitive and physical development leaps can often be the cause.

Our infants go through such a huge amount of advancement in their first few years and their little brains are in constant overdrive. When our middle son Rafferty first started clapping he would wake at 2am and then again at 5am for a clap!

He wasn’t upset; he just wanted to practice his new skill.

It’s how parents react to these changes that determine if these wakings are only temporary or become a longer term habit.

As Rafferty wasn’t upset, we left him to clap until his heart was content!

After a while he drifted back off to sleep.

If we had reacted to him and assumed he was up for the day, he easily could have thought 5am was an acceptable time to wake going forward (and we can assure you it isn’t an acceptable time for this Mummy and Daddy!).

We often see this a lot with parents getting their little one up and doing breakfast and playing.

When this happens, the metabolism kick-starts and that is often the biggest driver to waking as the bodyclock thinks it’s morning and nutritional reinforcements are required. Think about it like being in a new timezone when you’re on holiday.

They Are Going To Bed Early & Getting Enough Sleep

This might hurt some parents, including us, but some of our babies just don’t need more than 10.5-11 hours of sleep at night. 

Our youngest son is definitely more of an 11 hour night sleeper, whereas his two older brothers were at least 12!

Therefore, we always have to be mindful on earlier bedtimes for Malachy.

With the older two, if they are exhausted, we can bring bedtime forward and we know they will then sleep until their normal wake up time. However, Malachy doesn’t always do this, so we would only put him to bed early if he was exhausted. 

When we do, he often does still sleep beyond his normal wake time, bit it’s definitely something to trial.

Habit!

For some babies, early wakings can just become a habit. After all, it’s a body clock and the body can get used to doing things at the same time each day/night.

That’s why we always recommend not to feed a baby too early in the morning if possible.

Baby Teething

The other culprit that we all know and love is teething.

Before becoming parents thought a baby teething was something that happened in fits and spurts.

We didn’t realise that it’s pretty much constant for 2 years! But what’s important to remember is that little ones typically sleep through what we like to call ‘normal baby teething’.

It shouldn’t be a reason to put off or delay encouraging your baby to practice independent sleep, that’s for sure.

There are times when them little baby teeth are pushing through the skin; this can be such a tough time for babies and you should give them as much extra support that they need.

Use your parental instinct – it’s the best tool you have in your bag!

How To Stop Early Wakings?

OK, so we have established some of the causes, but what can you do to help encourage them back to sleep when they wake early?

Start with looking at the sleep environment: blackout blinds, white noise and temperature (ideally between16-20 degrees Celsius) are all reasonably easy fixes.

Focus on day sleep. Finding the ideal day routine for your little one is a huge component of long and restful night sleep.

Make sure bedtime isn’t too late. We often hear parents say they put little ones down later to stop them waking early but as we learned above, overtiredness can have the opposite effect. 

And often what happens is that they wake even earlier… defies the normal logic, right??

If anything put your baby down a little earlier than their normal bedtime, can have a much more positive impact on their sleep patterns during the night and in the early morning.

We also get asked if you should feed your baby when they wake at 5am.

This is optional, and generally more applicable for older babies (not newborns), but we do encourage a ‘no-feed zone’ between 5-6am (if your baby’s schedule is 7pm-7am).

Feeding too early in the morning will kickstart your baby’s metabolism and they can begin to ‘need’ that early feed which reinforces them waking again and again.

If they wake between this time, encourage them back to sleep with settling methods such as rubbing their back, shushing and repeating a consistent sleep phrase such as ‘sleepy time’. 

Also, work out what time of the day is acceptable for your family to wake up.

As a guide we tell our clients to count forward 11 hours from bedtime for what is acceptable and not an early waking, e.g. if your baby goes down to sleep at 7pm, then 6am is an OK time to start the day (hence the 5-6am no-feed zone).

It might be hard in practice, but try and not rush to get them up before that time and instead help settle them back to sleep.

Getting them to drift back off to sleep is the powerful response your baby’s body needs to shift the body clock – think about it as the things you’d need to do if you went on holiday to a different time zone.

Once it gets to your agreed ‘wake time’, burst into the room happy and sunny to start the day. 

Early wakings are tough, especially when you’ve finally got your baby sleeping better. 

However, there is something driving the early wakings and when there is a problem, there is usually a solution – it just isn’t always an easy solution.

Our online courses contain all the information you need to help your little one get into a great routine for them.

It also has a big section on settling techniques to help your baby get back to sleep when they wake at 5am. 

 

We are UK and Ireland leading baby and toddler sleep consultancy specialising in resolving even the most complex sleep issues. Our age age-specific online courses for you to implement at your own pace. 

We also work with clients directly with our – check out our one-to-one sleep plans if you wish to explore that option.

 

 

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