Let’s troubleshoot early morning wake ups.
Early morning wake ups are the worst, especially when you stayed up late binging on Netflix! If your children are anything like mine, they normally tell me something needs to change in the day time by waking up between 5-6am. At this time of day, children are in the lightest stage of sleep. If all the pieces of the sleep jigsaw puzzle are not aligned, this is when you will see it show up.
Let’s break this down. Things to think about first:
- Light and noise: Is their bedroom dark enough? Is it getting lighter earlier? Is something or someone accidentally waking them between 5-6 am? Overnight sleep pressure is at its lowest early in the morning, so even the slightest noise or light can wake them. For example, our newspaper man was waking my son with his motorbike so we had to move his bed to the other side of the room!!
- Food: Is your baby or toddler getting enough calories during the day. Nutrition is so important for our little ones. After the newborn phase, babies should be having full milk feeds every 2-3 hours throughout the day. The addition of solids after 6 months is important but milk should always be offered first.
- Temperature: is the room too hot/cold? Even in Singapore, early in the morning is when children will feel the cold. As sleep pressure wears off if they feel too cold they are likely going to tell you about it. Do you need to increase the aircon temperature before you go to bed or get the heating to come on a little earlier?
When you can confidently rule out all of the above as factors it’s time to think about sleep pressure. Sometimes early morning wake ups can be a sign something is not quite right with your child’s sleep pressure.
The secret formula is getting the right balance between age appropriate awake windows and total day time sleep:
Age appropriate awake time + Age appropriate total daytime sleep = Adequate sleep pressure to consolidate overnight sleep
Most of the time this means you need to extend your child’s awake windows, cap day time sleep, and sometimes drop naps. Getting this daily rhythm right can be hard as no two children are the same.
The final piece of the jigsaw puzzle you may need to think about is how your child gets to sleep at bedtime. If they need a lot of support to get to sleep at bedtime, when they go into light stage sleep in the early hours of the morning, they will still need help to get back to sleep at that time as well. Gently moving towards a more independent sleep skill can really help get rid of those 5am wake ups.
Solving the early morning wake-up puzzle usually isn’t about one “magic” fix, but rather fine-tuning all those small pieces. From the blackout curtains and room temperature to the delicate balance of daytime sleep pressure. If you are struggling with early morning wake ups no matter what you try please don’t hesitated to reach out!