Any waking before 6am is classed as early rising.  Beyond 6am is generally considered to be a reasonable wake time for a young child, provided they are getting enough sleep, going to bed early enough, and reliably sleeping as well.  If your child is waking before 6am, then I put that into the early rising category. If a child has capacity to sleep later in the morning time (later than 6am) then, they will do so in time, provided that the context of their sleep is supported enough for them to do so.

Types of Early Risers:

1. One’s that are stuck in early cycle
2. Temporary due to teething/sickness/developmental progression
3. Start of a sleep learning exercise (typically will resolve within 3-6 weeks of completion)
4. Have had enough sleep due to early bedtime
5. Are predisposed genetically

There are 2 main contributing factors to a lot of sleep challenges that parents experience.

1. Sleep ability. This is an indicator of your child’s capacity to be able to get to sleep themselves with low to no parental intervention. Sleep ability exists on a spectrum that can range from low to high. We are aiming for high sleep ability to address many sleep issues. Sleep ability is your child’s capacity to get to sleep and it is a determining factor of your child’s capacity to return to sleep.

If you are very involved in your child’s sleep processes:  helping them to get to sleep, inducing sleep, if you are working within the parameters of drowsy but awake. Then your child’s sleep ability may be on the lower end of the scale, leaving you vulnerable to some of the challenges that you experience.

2. Biological timekeeping issues also contribute to many of the sleep challenges experienced. Your child’s sleep is deeply influenced by the circadian rhythm, and again, their circadian rhythm is a process of maturation from womb and beyond. The circadian rhythm has a powerful impact on how our children experience their sleep

Many children who struggle with some part of their sleep profile have irregular/ early/late wake times, they often have daytime sleep that is attempted too early or too late. As a result of irregularity, often their sleep is limited, and they don’t sleep enough and as the day unfolds, they often develop a cumulative level of overtiredness. Even with well-timed bedtimes, they are often overtired going to sleep, which contributes very much to early waking. When a young body becomes overtired, it does have a chemical response, which is cortisol and adrenaline to the system, and it has two main jobs:  It creates a fight or flight mode/ resistance to sleep, and it also makes it more challenging to stay asleep.

Core Contributory factors to early rising:

1. Sleep ability- including silent assassins, such as drinks/feeds less than 45m before bedtime
2. Bed-timing- too early/ to late
3. Awake too long before bedtime
4. Nap imbalances
5. Naps in 8am’s when on more than one nap and 12pm’s or earlier when on one.
6. Unpredictable responses to the early waking ingrains the cycle of waking too soon to start the day.

Checklist:

Environment: dark, warm, without distractions/stimulation.  View the sleep room from child’s perspective.  Isolate light sources, avoid hall, bathroom, ensuite lights.  Use a discreet night light not in eye line.

Consider if room-sharing contributes to this and address as appropriate.

Provide lots of emotional availability/alongside time without a parent present.

Provide lots of exposure to bright a natural light on wake up and throughout daytime.  Establish good outside activity/fresh air and age relevant stimulation.  Be conservative with screens specifically in the hour before bedtime.

Be mindful of how you start the day and where and what you offer to eat and drink.  Consider a protein at lunch time and a meat protein or plant-based equivalent as the evening meal: even when a main meal is provided a lunch time.

Make appropriate changes:

Implement the age-related feeding and sleeping balance provided.  Adjust nap timing as required based on sleep ability.  If naps are well established (high sleep ability) then you can generally remain on time-based sleep, but you may need to consider a return to wake windows if you are also working on improving sleep ability or you have stretched the naps, and your child is visibly too tired.

Address the vulnerabilities such as limit nap 1 to promote nap 2, move the single nap later, introduce the fixed feed (to separate feeds from sleep), move naps later in evening, bring forward or move bedtime later, so that for the first week you have a set bedtime to help you discover the correct bedtime for your child. Implement the stay and support approach at bedtime/early in the morning as needed.

If you need to be present and support at bedtime (typically for initial upset), spend 7 days in this position, exchange between parents as appropriate after first 2 bedtimes carried out by the same person.  Then move through my suggested sleep stages,  so that you remove parental presence from your child’s bedtime sleep context.

Overnight

Weeks 1-3 beside the cot for any night wakes: use stay and support, treat any waking before 6am as nighttime.  After this time, if awake, get up and out of the bedroom, downstairs and drinks/feeds/food in the living space.  Avoid TV, cuddles in main bed. Wake by 7.30 am if still asleep.

Overnight week 4: start to come and go for any night wakes before 6am similar to what you are doing at bedtime.

Overnight week 5: Begin to leave them on their own for any wake before 6am, you will need to judge this.

Week 6/7 -zoom out and review.  If you have observed all steps, then early waking may be resolved.  If it is not, revise the information.  If it begins to appear that they have had enough sleep, then you can now begin to move bedtime later and review if a later bedtime, will yield a corresponding later wake time. This may be tricky territory, and you will need to keep an eye on losing sleep if bedtime is later and the wake time does not shift.

Nap adjustments:

Week 2- move nap 1 out of 8am’s and towards 9am by adjusting the start time by 5-10 minutes each day.

Week 3 -8m+ and no third nap- move nap 2 to 1.30/2pm.

Whenever we make adjustments our priority will continue to be on bed-timing as well.