Have an early riser in your home? Here are 4 tips to get your baby to sleep later.
The following is a guest post by Tara D’Amico of D’Amico Dream Consulting. Enjoy!
How can I get my early riser to sleep later?
Today, our question comes from Kathy, and she writes…
“My 10 month old is waking up at 4:00 a.m., and won’t go back to sleep even after I nurse him. He then, struggles to make it to his first nap of the day. He goes to bed at 7:30 p.m., and has two solid naps during the day. How can I fix this?”
First of all, Kathy, you are not alone in this. This is the number one question that I get from parents on a weekly basis. Their baby is waking up too early. There are 4 tips I would like to discuss that can help you get your baby sleeping longer.
- Investigate your child’s sleeping environment. Since your child is in a lighter stage of sleep in the early morning hours, many things can awaken your child that normally wouldn’t any other time during the night. The first place I always look is darkness. We really need to keep light out. Parent’s often tell me that they’ve got it dark enough, but it can always be darker, because even the slightest change in light variation can stimulate a wake up in anybody. As an adult, you can look at the clock and notice that it’s not time to get up yet. A baby can’t do that. Side note: This also goes for night light or lights emitted from a humidifier (especially if it is blue light). The same goes for sounds. Someone waking up and getting ready for work , the garbage truck or newspaper being delivered can also awaken your child. If you find something in the environment that is waking your child, remedy the situation. Install room-darkening shades or do whatever you need to block all light and drown out the noises with a white noise machine.
- Is your child relying on something external when they wake? In Kathy’s example, my concern is that the 4:00 a.m. feed might actually get earlier and earlier, instead of buying you more time. To the baby, there is no difference between a 2:00 a.m. feed and a 4:00 a.m. feed and they are relying on that feed to get them back to sleep. I would suggest pulling that night feeding since that is causing him to wake earlier. You might actually be stimulating him and waking him up. After his nurse, he goes back to the crib and thinks, “What are we doing here? I feel ready to go. Let’s start the day.”
- Keep the routine, even with the early wake time. If a baby wakes too early in the morning, gets up and starts his/her day, fatigue will follow shortly thereafter. It is so tempting to have an earlier morning nap for this scenario but trust me, it can cause a viscous cycle of your baby waking up too early, going down for a nap at 7:00 a.m., and throwing off your whole day and further disrupting your child’s body clock leading to a very tiring day for everyone. Even though it’s really tough, and I totally understand that, you’ve got to hang on to his normal nap time. If it’s 9:30 a.m., even if he’s been up since 4:30 a.m., try to hang in there until 9:30 a.m.. My advice would be to give him a bit of fresh air around 8:00 a.m. and make sure that you give him enough snacks and food to keep his energy levels up to help encourage him to make the stretch to his first nap time.
- Do not push bedtime too late (8:00 p.m. being on the later side). If you’ve got an early riser I am sure you get advice every which way to put your child to bed later. “Oh, if you just keep him up late, he’ll sleep later in the morning.” That hardly ever works. This can create a huge amount of over-tiredness in your child, which leads to more fragmented sleep and even earlier morning wake ups. Earlier bedtime works best to find that sweet spot of a good morning wake time. This is not something that should be expected to fall in line in a day or two so give it at least 4-5 days to adjust and get a good gauge at what time is best for your child.
If you are struggling with your early riser and would like to dig deeper, let’s set up a FREE consultation call and get your child sleeping later. Make sure to head over to my Facebook page for the latest information on upcoming seminars, giveaways, and more.
I am SUPER EXCITED to launch my Holiday giveaway event where I will be raffling off prizes and bringing holiday cheer to all of my supporters! More information will be on the D’Amico Dream Consulting Facebook page next week! Also, I will be hosting another FREE Sleep Q&A session to tackle any sleep disturbances, Tuesday November 17th at 8:30 p.m. EST.
About Tara D'Amico
After 10 months of sleep challenges with my son, I truly understand what it feels like to be sleep deprived. After implementing the Sleep Sense Program, healthy sleep habits became a passion to me because of the difference it made for my family. I was selected by Dana Obleman to undergo a comprehensive training and mentoring program, welcoming the opportunity to become a Certified Sleep Sense Consultant. I have helped numerous parent's through this program, supporting them every step of the way. I would love the opportunity to do the same for you!
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