Early morning wake ups (EMW/EMWU) are some of the most frustrating sleep issues to encounter and solve. But do not worry. This blog will go over what is considered an early morning wake up, their causes, and how to solve them.
First, let’s define an early morning wake up. An EMW is a wake up where your infant, toddler, or child gets less than 10.5 hours of overnight sleep and/or wakes up prior to 6:00 am and they do not return back to sleep.
Below are several reasons for early morning wakings, examples, and how to go about preventing early wakings in babies and toddlers.
Overtiredness (and it's role in preventing early wakings):
The most common culprit of early morning wake ups are being overtired. This can be due to the wake window before your child’s bedtime being too long. OR they have too much total wake time in the day.
For example: A 5 month old is often awake for 2-2.25 hours during the day with roughly 3 naps (2hrs-2hrs15min). If your child’s day is looking something like…
Out of crib 6:30am
Nap 8:30am-9:30am
Nap 11:30am-1:15pm
Nap 3:30pm-4:00pm
Bedtime 7:45pm
^Those wake times are 2/2/2.25/2.75. Bringing bedtime up to 7:15pm could help solve the early wake up.
Another example, which includes too much total wake time can look like…
Out of crib 6:30am
Nap 8:30am-9:30am
Nap 11:30am-1:00pmNap 4:00pm-4:30pm
Bedtime 7:30pm
^Those wake times are 2/2/3/3.5. Which is too much total wake time (with a long wake window before bed) of 10.5 hours. Try scaling back to 2/2.25/2.25/2.25 (8.75 hours) to see if that resolves early wake ups.
Undertiredness:
I know I just spoke of being overtired…but your kiddo can also be undertired too! Just like overtired, being undertired can either be your wake window before bedtime is too short, your total wake time is too low, or perhaps your child is napping too long during the day.
For example: A 10 month old is often awake for 3-3.5 hours throughout the day with about 2.5-3 hours of day sleep across 2 naps.
If your child’s day looks like…
Out of crib 6:30am
Nap 9:30am-11:30am
Nap 2:30pm-3:30pm
Bedtime 6:45pm
^Those wake windows are 3/3/3.25, which can be low. You can add 15 minutes before either nap 2 or bedtime to add more total wake time or wake time before bedtime to help resolve early wakings.
Another example for a 10 month old..which can include maybe too much day sleep, but appropriate wake times are…
Out of crib 6:30am
Nap 9:30am-11:30am
Nap 2:45pm-4:45pm
Bedtime 8:00pm
^Above has roughly 4 hours of daytime sleep. Try cutting naps to 1.5 split (3 hours of total sleep) in order to shift some of the day's sleep to their nights!
Can teething cause early wakings?
Since sleep is so light during the hours I mentioned above, any kind of discomfort can cause early morning wake ups and it can be hard for our child to return back to sleep when they are not feeling well (understandably so!) By all means, comfort your child how you see fit. Once they are feeling better, return to your normal sleep habits. If early morning wakings are still occurring and the teething and illness/pain has subsided, you may want to look at all the other reasons listed within the blog.
Environmental Causes to Early Wakings for Children
Your child’s environment might be reinforcing that early wake. Light peeking into their room (even small lights like on a fire alarm or their baby monitor) can be a distraction if their room is dark. Light can also peek through the cracks of doors and windows. Sometimes even a consistent noise can be waking them up (parent getting ready for work, dog barking, traffic, etc).
This one can be tricky to figure out. But to make sure that you have your bases covered, you can use electrical tape for small lights or add another layer of window blackouts or hang a sheet to cover cracks in the bedroom door. For noise, add in a white noise machine to your child’s room. If you have one and need an extra layer of protection, you can add a white noise machine to where the source of the sound is coming from to help.
Can sleep training help my child sleep later?
Yes! Sleep training can cause early wakes. So what do I mean by that? Well if you are sleep training and working on the skill of falling asleep independently at bedtime, this can be hard for a kiddo to get the hang of between the hours of 4:00am-6:00am. Also..the byproduct of sleep training is overtiredness. Don’t worry, this will resolve on its own soon as your kiddo gets the hang of the independent sleep skill. If you’re still struggling, you might want to tweak their schedule a bit.
Can early bedtimes cause early wake ups?
This can be a major culprit to early wake ups because we are essentially bringing everything forward during the day that bedtime is early and the cycle repeats itself. What do I mean by this?
Let’s give an example of a 12 month old on 2 naps with 3.25/3.5/3.5 wake windows.
You hear your little one wake up around 5:30am and are bringing them out of their crib at this time.
Wake 5:30am/OOC 5:30am
Nap 8:45am-10:00am
Nap 1:30pm-3:00pm
Bedtime 6:30pm
^^The above schedule your child is technically sleeping 11 hours at night, but their whole schedule is just shifted really early.
A few things you can do is keep your child in the sleep space until your designated time when you want them to wake up and base their first nap off of this. This will shift your child’s circadian rhythm to a more desired wake up time.
Example would be..
Wake 5:30am/OOC 6:30am
Nap 9:45am-11:00am
Nap 2:30pm-4:00pm
Bedtime 7:30pm
Dependent Sleep Associations:
If your baby, toddler, or child is not falling asleep independently at bedtime then we cannot expect them to fall asleep by themselves without their bedtime sleep association. That being said, sleep training and falling asleep independently at bedtime is the way to resolve this. Of course, if assisting your child at bedtime is working for you, then by all means keep it!
Early morning wakings can take a bit to sift through. If you need professional help, do not hesitate to contact a sleep consultant!
Author:
Maddie Jandick is a certified pediatric sleep consultant and a board-certified behavior analyst. She is the owner of Swiftly to Sleep. She was certified through The Collective of Family, Rest, and Wellness in August 2022. Maddie is passionate about helping families get better sleep. Her goal is for parents to become intuitive about their child's sleep and remain flexible if things go off course. Maddie has also helped countless children on the autism spectrum in their homes, communities, clinics, and schools. No matter the client, the end goal is a better and more sustainable quality of life for the family to thrive.