Why Is Your Baby Waking Up Too Early? Tips To Help!

If you are a parent, then you’ve definitely had the experience of your baby waking up way too early! It’s a right of passage, but you aren’t selfish if you’d like more sleep!

Although you can’t expect a baby to conform to whatever sleep routines you want, they are their own person after all, we can definitely help guide your baby improve and/or lengthen their sleep.

But please note: This doesn't apply to infants under about four months of age (adjusted if they were born before their due date). New babies can wake up anytime and usually it’s because they need to be fed, changed, etc. Don’t worry, they do grow out of this stage!

So if you want to help your baby “sleep-in” until 6-7am, here are some tips.

How Much Sleep Does Your Baby Need

First, it’s good to know that most babies after about four months of age will probably get somewhere between 10 to 12 hours of overnight sleep. This includes getting up for feedings during the night, so you don’t need to subtract the time that they are not actually sleeping

Ensuring that Baby is sleeping until at least 6:00am usually helps ensure they’ve had enough overnight sleep to fuel them for the day.

Continuing to value sleep in your household will help them focus on its importance as they continue to grow.

What Causes Early Morning Wakes & How To Help

Early morning wake-ups (before 6am) are totally normal! Your baby’s internal biological clock (AKA circadian rhythms) which is what regulates their sleep-wake cycles, may still be in training, but there are some common reasons they might be waking up early:

They Are Overtired

You might think that if your baby is waking up early, they may need a later bedtime, but that’s actually not often the case! If your baby is awake longer than they can tolerate, their stress hormone, cortisol can make it tough for them to fall asleep. or stay asleep and that leads to lower quality sleep. Overtiredness is the most common reason for waking up too early in the morning.

For the solution, we want to make sure that your baby isn't staying awake longer than what's appropriate for their age and stage of development, this includes naps and bedtime. Making sure your baby isn't overtired can help them fall asleep easier as well as help them to stay asleep until a bit later in the morning.

They’ve Gotten Enough Sleep

On the other hand, your baby could be waking up early because they’ve already gotten enough sleep! It can depend on the child’s age but sometimes if their last nap was too close to bedtime, for instance, they probably aren’t tired enough to sleep for the whole night.

The solution to this problem could be to start limiting their daytime sleep, and possibly pushing their bedtime a bit later. Alternatively, you could try shifting their entire schedule ahead, much like going through a time change.

To check to see if your baby is getting enough sleep, check out this chart by The Sleep Foundation

Their Hormones

Cortisol is a hormone that is vital for many different processes in our bodies. It is nicknamed the “stress hormone,” but it’s not all bad! Cortisol naturally rises in our bodies during the early morning hours before we wake up, and that build up of cortisol is how we wake up naturally.

If your baby has gotten a decent amount of sleep, and they wake up at 4am or 5am (whether for a feeding or not), their natural amount of cortisol they already have built-up MAY be preventing them from going back to sleep.

So, what should you do? You might consider SAFE co-sleeping for those last few hours to get you all ‘till morning. Alternatively, you could make changes to their sleep routines by helping them rearrange their sleep during their day, or implement some sleep training techniques so they can better organize their sleep themselves!

Want Customized Advice?

When you’ve tried figuring it out on your own and you still feel like you aren’t getting enough sleep, this is where a sleep consultant can help! We can chat about the challenges around sleep you’ve been facing, and come up with a personalized sleep plan.

Sleep is vital for our physical and mental health, and it’s totally valid for you to want more sleep. Know that you are definitely not the only one going through this stage of poor, interrupted sleep, and this stage won’t last forever!