- Believe it or not,
early morning wakes aren't something
you just have to live with.
In fact, it's not your baby's preference or a requirement.
It's simply the current pattern that they are in.
And the reason I'm telling you this
is because there are actually some really simple things
that you can do to change this pattern
and get them to wake up
at a much more reasonable time every morning,
and I'm going to teach you how to do that in this video.
Let's start with why the habit of early morning wakes
often feels impossible to break.
The problem is that once a baby wakes up
between 4:00 or 5:00 in the morning,
it is near impossible to get them to go back to sleep.
And this is because of three factors.
Firstly, when your baby has woken up
in the early hours of the morning,
they, presumably, just had 8 to 10 hours of sleep,
which means that their sleep pressure,
which is one of the driving factors for sleep, is low.
Also, in the early morning as the sun rises,
a baby's melatonin level starts to drop,
and this tells their body
that it's actually time to wake up.
In addition to these two factors,
sleep is also very, very light
in the early hours of the morning,
which means that it's easier for a baby
to accidentally be woken up by environmental noises,
hunger, or just general discomfort from a wet diaper.
So although your baby may need more sleep,
all of these factors
are actually encouraging them to wake up early.
To fix an early morning waking habit,
you need to try and address each of these factors.
And the first way you do this
is actually by following an age-appropriate schedule.
Following an age-appropriate schedule
will ensure that your baby
is not sleeping too long during the day,
and therefore has enough sleep pressure
to stay asleep for 10 to 12 hours at night.
If your baby is not following
an age-appropriate sleep schedule,
they may be sleeping too much during the day,
which, in turn, reduces the amount
of nighttime sleep they actually need,
which means that they're going to wake early.
So for example, if your baby is 11 months of age,
their total sleep requirement over 24 hours
is generally 13 hours.
But if they're sleeping for four hours during the day,
then they only need to sleep
for a maximum of nine hours overnight.
Which means if they go to bed at 7:00 at night,
then no matter what you do,
they're going to wake at 4:00 AM
because they've had their nine hours of sleep.
Ensuring that your baby
is following age-appropriate sleep schedule
will mean that your baby has enough sleep pressure
that they will sleep from 8:00 or 7:00 PM at night
all the way till 6:00 in the morning.
Now, to find out
what is an age-appropriate sleep schedule for your baby,
make sure you download the free New Parents Guide to Naps
by clicking the link in the description box below.
In addition to adopting an age-appropriate schedule,
when your little one does wake
in the early hours of the morning,
it's really important that you actually treat it
like it's a nighttime waking.
And by that, I mean you keep the room dark, and quiet,
and stay in bed until the desired wake up time.
At all costs, you want to avoid starting your day
at 4:00 or 5:00 AM in the morning
because you don't want to accidentally encourage your baby
to develop an early morning wake up habit,
which will happen if you start your day too early.
So for example, if you have a nine-month-old baby
who wakes at 4:00 AM and you start your day at this point,
you are going to notice
that after being awake for two hours,
they need their first nap.
And after sleeping for 1 1/2 hours,
they'll wake up from that first nap at 7:30 in the morning.
Then, after being awake for three hours,
they're going to be ready for their second nap,
which means at 10:30 in the morning,
they're going down for their second nap
sleeping for 1 1/2 hours, and then waking at 12:00.
Now, as nine-month-olds can generally only stay awake
for five hours following their second nap,
that nine month old
is going to be ready for bedtime at 5:00 PM.
And because nine-month-olds only sleep
for around 11 hours at night max,
they're going to be ready to start their day
at 4:00 AM the next morning.
And very quickly, you can see that that baby
develops an early morning wake up habit.
So to ensure that you don't accidentally create a habit
of early morning wakes,
when your baby does wake early in the morning,
treat it like it is a nighttime wake
until your desired wake up time.
Keeping your baby's bedroom dark
until the desired wake up time
will also ensure that it limits your baby's exposure
to light in the morning.
Because light exposure in the morning
actually tells your baby's internal clock
that it's time to wake up.
In fact, if your baby was to wake up
at 4:00 or 5:00 in the morning
and you actually opened up their blinds
and turned on the lights,
you are actually unintentionally
resetting their circadian rhythm,
and this will cause your baby
to lock in that early wake up time.
So to fix early morning wakes,
make sure you keep your baby's bedroom dark
by using black-out blinds
and keeping night lights off
until that desired wake up time.
It is also really important to minimize household
and neighborhood noises in the early morning hours
because we know that babies' sleep
in those early morning hours is very, very light.
And these household noises and neighborhood noises,
like that garbage truck rumbling down the street
or birds chirping,
can easily wake a baby up at 4:00 or 5:00 in the morning.
And then they're going to find it really difficult
to go back to sleep.
So to ensure your baby doesn't accidentally wake up
due to these environmental noises,
think about using a white noise machine
to help mask these noises
and prevent those early morning wakes.
Now, since the maximum volume on white noise machines
can actually exceed the recommended noise level for children
and have the potential to lead
to noise-induced hearing loss,
it's really important that you minimize the risk
by keeping the volume of the white noise machine
below that maximum level
and placing that white noise machine
at least 6.5 feet or 200 centimeters
away from your baby's sleep space.
Another big factor to actually fixing early morning wakes
is helping your baby learn to fall asleep independently.
During the night, babies have multiple sleep cycles
and partially wake up between each cycle.
If they have learned to fall asleep independently,
they will simply fall back asleep
between these sleep cycles.
But, if they rely on an adult to rock, feed,
or hold them, or replace a pacifier to fall back to sleep,
then they are going to wake up fully between sleep cycles
and then want your help to fall back to sleep.
For babies who require an adult to fall back to sleep,
they typically sleep well at the beginning part of the night
because their sleep drive is high
and their internal clock is telling them to go to sleep.
However, as the night progresses,
their sleep pressure dissipates and their internal clocks,
switches from telling them to go to sleep, to wake up.
So they start to wake more frequently
during the early mornings
and call out to an adult to help them fall back to sleep.
For example, if your baby needs your help to fall asleep,
they may go to bed easily at 7:00 PM at night,
and then they might wake at 1:00, 3:00, and 5:00.
Now, you may be able to convince your baby
to go back to sleep when they wake at 1:00 and 3:00 AM
because there's enough sleep pressure to fall back asleep.
However, at 5:00 AM,
it's going to be impossible
to convince them to go back to sleep
because their sleep pressure is low
as they've just had that 10 hours of sleep
and their body clock is telling them
that it's time to wake up.
And that is exactly what they will do.
So you can see being able to fall asleep at bedtime
and back to sleep at night wakings throughout the night
is actually a vital skill
in conquering those early morning wake ups.
In addition to early morning wakes,
another common sleep problem parents often experience
is short naps.
Now, if this is something you are struggling with,
make sure you watch this video next
to find out the six different reasons
why short naps generally occur,
and more importantly what you can start to do today
to extend your little one's short naps.
Thanks for watching,
and I'll see you next week
where I'll share more parenting tips and tricks.