Young Children and Early Morning Waking

Common causes and what parents can do

Parents are in good company if their child is having early morning wakings – which I would define as waking before 6:00 or 6:30am. This is quite a common parental complaint and unfortunately one of the more difficult sleep problems to resolve. However there are certainly things parents can try before resigning to the fact that they will always be up before the sun.

A common cause of early morning wakings is what is sometimes referred to as a “negative” or “poor” learned sleep-onset association. This is when a child is not falling asleep independently at sleep-onset, but rather under a condition that she cannot re-establish on her own during the night. Examples include: being fed or rocked to sleep, falling asleep with a parent in the room, or with a pacifier that she cannot find and re-insert on her own. The problem with falling asleep under such conditions is that when children have arousals during the night (which we all do), they may need the same or similar condition to be re-established in order to return to sleep. This can happen throughout the night, including during the early morning hours.

Getting your child to return to sleep is probably more difficult in the last-half to the last-third of the night. This is because we (including children) get most of our light sleep in the early morning; therefore, it is more difficult to return to sleep following an awakening at this time. Parental contact at this time can serve to stimulate and arouse a child further. So be sure that you have addressed any negative sleep-onset associations that may be present and that you limit contact with your child during the night and in the early morning – unless of course she is sick. Ensuring that your child has the skill of falling asleep independently both at bedtime and following night wakings (unless she still needs nighttime feeds) is key to a child sleeping through the night.

Common Culprits 

Environmental factors such as noise or sunlight are common culprits of early wakings. Investing in room darkening shades and a white noise machine can be helpful. You also want to be sure that a heavy diaper or full bladder is not disturbing your child. If this is the case, you can try extra absorbent nighttime diapers or a larger size diaper. Parents can also try reducing the amount of fluid their child has in the last few hours before bedtime and offering her more earlier in the day.

Putting a child to bed later can actually have the opposite effect and result in an early waking. This is because when some children get overtired they actually wake more at night and earlier than usual in the morning. For some children, being put to bed a little earlier can be helpful. However you want to be careful not to make bedtime too early which can result in an early wake time. A good bedtime for most young children is between 7 and 8pm, with some preschoolers needing to be put down closer to 8 or 8:30pm if they are still napping.

When children are used to waking in the early morning they may not be aware that it is still time to sleep. A night-light attached to a timer is a simple ‘morning signal’ that can be used to teach children (toddlers and older) when it is morning time. Explain that when the light is off, everyone is sleeping and that the child must return to sleep. Teach her that when the light turns on that she can call out to be fetched. A reward chart can be used to reinforce positive behaviour.

Finally, early morning waking can sometimes be a sign that a morning nap is too early or that it should be dropped. However you would, of course, only drop the morning nap when a child was at the age where you would expect that a morning nap may be the culprit. In a child who is 3 to 6 months, this is often the case, and continuing to give her a morning nap may perpetuate the early morning wakings. This is because her body doesn't need to both sleep-in AND have a morning nap so she is waking early in anticipation of being able to nap in a few hours. This same theory applies to a morning nap that is too early. Most older infants need to be kept awake between two-and-a-half and three hours before their morning nap.