What is it about babies that almost guarantee them to wake up early? By early I mean 4.00am – 5.30am. I know of many parents who are in this predicament and can’t see a way out.
Remember, that babies are usually larks, so it’s natural for them to wake earlier than us and it’s usually not until middle primary school years that a child will show their true body clock and their natural circadian rhythm. It’s possible that if you have both parents that love their sleep, then their child will love their sleep too. It’s unrealistic to think that if the parents are natural early risers their children will sleep in. So, it’s important to self-analyse how you sleep as an adult and then expect that your child could possibly follow a similar rhythm.
Early wakeups can be a sign of overtiredness. In that case, why don’t babies just sleep in if they’re over tired? Well, it’s not that easy, and often when babies are overtired their brains are hyper wired, so they can’t actually “switch off” In this instance we have to work on the day sleeps to make sure the baby is getting enough sleep during the day and aren’t overtired by bedtime.
Let’s look at this in more detail – how do you know if your baby is getting enough sleep during the day? The trick is to watch out for their tired signs (read my Tired Signs Blog https://www.baabaababy.com.au/blog/tiredsigns). The moment your baby shows you tired signs, you start putting them to bed. Now, this doesn’t matter how long the time interval has been between them getting up from their last sleep to now, when they’re showing you tired signs. It could be 15 minutes, or it could be 2 hours. The important thing here is that the baby knows when they are tired and we need to follow their lead – not try and get them into a schedule that they need to sleep say at 2pm because that’s the schedule. Maybe your baby isn’t tired at 2pm, so you spend the next hour trying to get your baby to sleep, which is stressful and soul destroying for you! The other trick is ignoring information about length of awake windows depending on your baby’s age. Guess what? Your baby is unique and will have their own length of time for awake windows – it’s our job as the parent to work out how long that is, and not rely on someone else’s guide from their baby.
“ignore information about length of awake windows depending on your baby’s age!”
Once you have the day sleeps under control, the bedtime should also be flexible depending on how stimulated your baby has been during the day and how tired they are towards the end of the day. Flexibility in the time when your baby starts the bedtime routine is important so you’re not missing their prime time, high sleep pressure period when they will go down easily.
“The bedtime should be flexible”
Let’s say that you have done all of this, and your baby is still waking up early? The trick is to treat it like it’s a middle of the night wake up. Same level of voice (low and quiet), same tone of voice (hushed and quiet), feed (only if your baby is under 1 years old), cuddle to settle and then back into the cot to go back to sleep. At the next wake up you stall for an extra 5 minutes later before going into your baby, so starting from Monday baby wakes at 5am, by Friday you’re going into get them at 5.20am and so on until you get to the time that you think is an appropriate time to start the day. They will complain when you don’t go to them straight away, but listen to what that sounds like, and if they need you then you go in and reassure them – picking them up to comfort them and then when they’re settled, putting them back down to resettle in the cot to wait until the time comes that you want to start the day. Then you stick to this wake-up time forever as having a regular morning wake time helps to strengthen and cement the circadian rhythm. Thus, reinforcing your baby’s morning wake up time.
“having a regular morning wake time helps to strengthen and cement the circadian rhythm”
I do find the Gro Clock an amazing help with the early risers. From 2 years old a child can identify colours and the sun being up for the day is yellow, whereas in the middle of the night it’s a dark blue/black. As the parent you can set the Gro Clock to shine yellow at the time you want your child to get up. Then the child knows that they can get up or yell for their parents when the Clock is shining yellow. If your child makes noise before the clock shines yellow, you repeat the process like you would at all other times, as if it’s the middle of the night. Reassuring them that it’s too early to wake up, that everyone is still asleep, and they need to go back to sleep. Some days will be easier than others in getting this message across. The key here is consistency – consistency with your message, and consistency in your routine and the order that you do your bedtime routine. So, they know what’s expected of them and know what’s coming up next so they feel comfortable and confident in their environment. Often, I feel it’s the parents that end up getting in the way of their baby going to sleep, by this I mean that babies are so in tune and hard wired to read their parents that any slightest ambivalence on the parents behalf is like a neon sign for the baby to keep pushing the boundaries, as they sense that the parent is not confident in their request. So, when you do say to your child “it’s the middle of the night and you need to go back to sleep, I love you and I’ll see you in the morning” you say it in a confident, no discussion about this, “mums got this” attitude and not the half-hearted, wishful almost pleading tone that immediately sets the baby’s radar onto high alert and therefore will cry to keep you close because they sense that you’re not confident – “if Mums not confident then I also need to be on edge”
Another point is, don’t go straight to a feed as the first option every time your child wakes early, as this will reinforce the behaviour. If you think they’re hungry then make sure you give them more solids/milk and are well fed before bed for the following night’s bedtime routine.
Remember that children take their cues from their parents, so take the time to analyse what you’re already doing, keep what you want to continue doing and change the rest!
