I’m The Sleep Nanny – here’s why your baby’s waking up so early and how to combat it | The Sun
A SLEEP expert for kids has revealed why your baby is waking up so early, and how to fix it.
Most parents know that with a newborn, they’ll be getting up repeatedly throughout the night.
But once a baby is a few months old, sleeping through the night becomes more common.
However, many parents will know the horror of a wake-up call at 6am, 5am or even earlier, when their little one starts shrieking.
An early riser is a baby that wakes up pre-6am, said Lucy Shrimpton, AKA the Sleep Nanny.
“If you’re getting wake-ups before 4:00AM, then it’s a night waking and that’s another kettle of fish,” she wrote on her website.
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“Wake-ups at 9:00PM, at 11:00PM, 2:00AM, they could be for all kinds of reasons.
“But the typical early waking time is usually between 4 and 5:00AM, maybe 5:30. That’s what we call early waking.”
Overtired
Lucy said the reason your baby is waking up early is not because they’ve had enough rest.
In fact, it’s because they are sleep deprived.
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She said: “They’re overtired, so they’re waking early? Makes no sense, does it?
“It’s to do with how it reacts in the body and how over tiredness creates actually a bigger influx of hormones that actually keep you going and keep you stimulated. And that’s why we wake up more.
“You may have had this yourself when, if you’ve been travelling, maybe long haul and multiple countries and you’ve got to an airport and you’re like, ‘Oh my God, I just need to sleep’.
“But you can’t. And I’ve got to get that next flight and you power on and you power on. And then all of a sudden you feel, ‘I’m not tired anymore… I’m over it’.
“That’s because your body has released these hormones to keep you going and you push past that tired window and you’re actually overtired, but you feel wired.
“Little ones will often do this. They will have a certain amount of sleep, but then they’re awake and they can find themselves awake and wired because they’re overtired.”
Nip it in the nap
Lucy said it can be hard to spot an overtired baby because it is not obvious.
They will still be napping – but they might not be napping for long enough, or getting decent rest.
Lucy said: “Sometimes you might think they’re napping a lot, but actually they’re napping very short like cat naps, so the quality of the nap isn’t great.
“So it’s about the length and the quality.”
She said motion naps – those that happen in the car or on a train – can be of less quality because a person is unlikely to get into a deep sleep due to their head bopping.
“A motion nap could be causing light sleep for little one,” Lucy said.
Wake window
Lucy said that parents may be keeping their baby awake for too long.
The “wake window” is how long your little one can be awake for in between sleeps, Lucy said.
And if your baby is not getting decent naps, their wake window should be shorter – i.e, naptime is calling again.
Lucy said: “Let’s say the nap would be best if it were 90 minutes long, but we’re only getting 30 minutes.
“Well, then we can’t do the full wake window. We need to reduce the wake window and bring the next nap earlier.”
Inconsistent bedtime
Keeping baby’s bedtime consistent is important to prevent them getting overtired, Lucy said.
She said parents too often allow bedtime to be “all over the place, instead of anchoring in a set time that is consistent every evening, which really helps little one’s body clock”.
Newborns don’t really have a body clock because they haven’t learned the difference between night and day.
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But as they get used to a routine, try and stick to it.
Lucy said: “Right now, your homework is to go look at where the overtiredness is coming from, and then you are ready to tackle and overcome the early waking.”
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