After 4am, the production of melatonin slows way down/stops. Sometimes this makes it hard for babies and toddlers to sleep past those wee hours of the morning. It can be hard to get your child to go back to sleep at this hour. I’m sharing tips on how to combat these early morning wake-ups.
That 4am-6am wake-up time is brutal. Anything after 6am is NOT considered an early morning wake-up.
The best thing to do when your child wakes up before 6am is to treat it like a middle-of-the-night waking. If you let your child think it’s time for anything OTHER THAN sleep, they’re never going to go back to sleep.
Here are some more tips to break that early morning waking habit:
- Do NOT reinforce the early morning wake-up by giving your child an earlier nap. If you let them nap early, they will continue to wake early and the cycle will go on and on and on.
- Do NOT continue going in their room trying to “get them back to sleep.” It’s not your job to put your child to sleep. Your child has those skills independently. You MAY do a quick wellness check, but that’s it. Go back to bed đ
- Make sure you have white noise going in your child’s room all night long.
- Use BlackoutEZ Window Covers so that no light is coming into their room.
- Limit daytime sleep. Make sure your child is getting the age-appropriate amount of daytime sleep.
- Start dimming the lights and quieting the house down after dinner. Make sure the evening is a time of relaxing and calming down.
- Have a dramatic wake-up time in the morning when it actually IS time to wake up!
It’s also important to make sure you’re ready to put in the work.
This isn’t a quick, easy fix. It’s not a magic trick. It takes time to teach your child to sleep longer in the morning. They NEED this sleep so don’t make it optional.
You may need to change your morning routine
If your child is waking up out of excitement about what they are going to do 1st thing in the morning, you’ll need to change your morning routine. You don’t want to offer your child milk/bottle/food RIGHT when they wake up. Your routine should look like this:
Wake up > Go potty (age-dependent) > Get washed up (brush teeth + wash face) > Change diaper/ clothes > Make the bed > Breakfast
If all else fails, you may need to adjust your child’s schedule. If your child is waking up happy and ready to start the day, they may be able to stretch a wake window or 2. You can test the wake windows by adding 15-30 minutes to the first wake window!
Tips for toddlers/ preschoolers waking up too early:
So, what’s next?
If you’ve implemented all of the strategies in this blog and you’re still struggling with early morning wake-ups, send me an email and we can set up a consultation. Missy@slumberandbloom.com
Keep Blooming,
Missy Yandow
Pediatric Sleep Consultant
Potty Training Coach
4 Comments
What do I do if my 23 month old wakes at 4am and canât go back to sleep? Can I do cry it out method?
You can check in and see that everything is ok, then use a sleep training method until morning.
I do all the above and still have this issue for my 4 month child.
What do you do when your LO also wakes up the whole house at 4am? We are trying to let her figure it out, but it ends up waking up our 3 year old.