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Hi! I’m Dana Obleman, creator of The Sleep Sense Program. If you’d rather read than watch, I’ve transcribed the text of this video below.
This week’s question is from Amy. She writes:
“I’ve been sleep training my nine-month-old for two weeks with wonderful results. The problem is that he’s now waking up too early… What can I do?”
I get that question a lot! The funny thing is that any parent in that situation probably would have given anything to sleep more than 5 hours in a row a few months ago, but once they get a taste of it, the next thing I usually hear about is how to get him sleeping past 5:00 a.m.? I don’t think morning starts until at least 6:00 am, so any earlier, even if it’s 5:59, is still not an acceptable, good way to start your day for most families.
Amy, the good news is that this will most likely fade. It’s really common in the first couple of weeks. To a nine-month-old who has had very fragmented sleep for most of his life and now has started sleeping 10 hours a night, he’s probably waking up around 5:00am feeling pretty good. He might think “I’ve had a really good, solid night of sleep and I’m ready to get up now.”
The thing is, if you did get him up at 5:00am, he’s unlikely to have very good stamina so he will probably be tired half an hour later. That really can mess with your schedule for napping and it’s just not good to get up at 5:00am. While a baby is reorganizing his sleep and learning how to consolidate nighttime sleep, they’ll often start waking too early and that will fade with time. Their body will realize it’s good but it’s not enough, and they’ll sleep that extra hour or to really finish off their night.
To speed it along you can choose not to get them up any time before 6:00am which is what I suggest people use as their minimum wake up time. If he’s awake at 5:00am, go in fairly quickly, rather than waiting for five or 10 minutes like other night wakings. I find that if you go in for those early morning wake ups fairly quickly, you will have a better chance of convincing him that it’s still nighttime and that he needs to go back to sleep. Do so quietly, by laying him down, giving him back his blanket, tucking him back in and then give him some pats or strokes for a minute or two telling him it’s still sleepy-time.
Just stay for a few minutes and then leave again. If he goes back to sleep, great! If he doesn’t, you’ll just need to keep going in every 10 minutes and reminding him it’s still night time until at least 6:00am. rolls around. If he’s not back to sleep by that time, then enough might be enough so you would go in and say good morning, turn on the lights and start your day.
Another thing to think about as we’re approaching summer is that the sun starts coming up a lot earlier and it does wreak havoc with everyone’s nighttime sleep. You’ve probably even found yourself waking earlier than you need to. The sun does stimulate us to start waking up and it will definitely do that for your baby.
Work hard in these summer months to make sure your child’s room is dark enough. And I mean dark; try to make it so that hardly any morning sunshine is peeking through whether it’s through using blackout blinds from hardware stores or just hanging a dark blanket. Do whatever you need to do to keep the morning sun out and you’ll probably find that buys you at least an extra hour. Work hard to encourage him to sleep a little later, at least until 6:00am and that should solve your problem.
Thanks for your question Amy. Sleep Well!
To learn more about The Sleep Sense Program, click here — or you can click here to order now!
To ask a question about your child’s sleep, just leave it in the ‘Comments’ section below! I’ll choose one and create a new video answer each week!
