If this is surge of cortisol is happening in your house, bedtime probably looks & feels like this! How Low Daytime Sleep Leads to Early Morning WakesĪnother factor often overlooked when it comes to early morning wakes is daytime sleep. In fact, it’s usually the exact opposite! Children need a minimum of 11-12 hours of sleep per night, so if you expect them to wake up at 6:00am or later, they should go to bed at least 11-12 hours prior to the desired wake time. Early to bed does not always mean early to wake. To ensure your baby isn’t going to bed overtired, put them to bed at an appropriate time for their age. And you’re thinking, what’s she got to stay awake for? She doesn’t watch Netflix and she hasn’t discovered TikTok yet. You probably know what we’re talking about – your little one goes from normal to wired in the blink of an eye. This often manifests as a big burst of energy right before bedtime.

Once a child surpasses their optimal wake window before bed, they have likely entered into overtiredness territory. We call this optimal time period a wake window, and they change as your little one gets older and is able to spend longer periods of time awake. Sleep (for all ages) is tremendously complicated! Overtiredness is Not Our FriendĪs a baby’s body produces melatonin, there is a narrow window of time when the body expects to be going to sleep. This is often easier said than done, and is tied to many factors including sleep schedule, individual sleep needs, environment, incentives, and more.īefore we dive in, it’s important to know that your child’s early morning wakes could be related to one of the following factors, or it could be a combination of several of them.

To ensure our little ones are able to sleep until morning (defined as 6:00am or later), we need to make sure they are going to sleep with optimal levels of melatonin and low levels of the stimulant, cortisol. But what does this all have to do with my baby waking at 4am?Īs beautifully crafted as our sleep system is, it’s not perfect and it’s easily disrupted. You now understand the basics of sleep science and the hormones at play. What Does This All Have to do with Sleep Past 4 am?

Melatonin production increases on the days we get plenty of natural, bright sunlight. Once the sun starts to set, our bodies recognize the onset of night and begin to produce melatonin, a sleep-inducing hormone that helps us fall asleep and stay asleep until morning, when the whole process starts over again. If cortisol is our morning cup of coffee, melatonin is our evening glass of wine. In the morning, its job is to get us started. Cortisol is a stimulating hormone and produced in times of stress to elevate the heart rate and stimulate the nervous system. First We Need to Understand the Basics of the System of SleepĪbout three hours before we’re naturally prone to waking up for the day, our bodies begin to secrete a hormone called cortisol. Read on for some more information about the reasons why they occur. While this blog post serves as an overview, the guide provides a deep dive and checklist for determining what is causing the early wakes. The guide will walk you step-by-step through troubleshooting your child’s exhausting early morning wakes so that your little one can get the sleep they need, and so can YOU! If you’re exhausted by the internet search for solutions and have tried everything you can think of - moving bedtime earlier, later, adjusting nap schedules and wake windows, adding a noise machine, ruling out hunger - but nothing seems to be working, this detailed 12 Step Guide to Getting Rid of Early Morning Wakes is for you. Here at the Sleeper Teachers we’ve helped hundreds of families resolve their children’s early morning wakes. Or maybe they were born an early riser? Do you feel like this mama waking around 4am? At different times you may have wondered the following: Is it a developmental milestone? A regression? Is my baby getting too much sleep during the day, or not enough? Maybe he’s just hungry. If you’ve gone down the internet research rabbit hole, you’ve likely been dealing with early morning wakes for a while now. Why won’t my baby sleep past 4 am? This is our most popular blog post, and for good reason.

6 month old wake up time