Early rising… one of the most common issues we have parents come to us with and often one of the most difficult things to shift.
What is early rising?
In the infant and toddler sleep world, early rising is defined as when your child begins their day between 5-6am. If they wake up earlier than 5am, we would categorize this more as a night awakening rather than an early rise and there is usually a few tweaks that can be made to shift this closer to 6am.
If your little one ticks these boxes, they may be a natural early riser. If not, there are likely outside factors that need to be addressed.
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Wake up on their own, chatty and happy
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Most active and energetic in the late morning to early afternoon
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Starts showing tired signs after dinner
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Happy to go to bed early and will fall asleep easily
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Sleeps soundly
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Wakes up early no matter what time they go to bed
If your little one doesn't tick all the above boxes, what do we need to address to see if we can shift these early rises?
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Awake time before bed
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Lead in to bedtime and sleep pressure
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Total day sleep
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Our response when they wake (this is a big one)
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Darkness of the room
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Sleep needs in a 24 hour period
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Sleep needs overnight
If you feel like you’ve tried EVERYTHING and your little one still wants to start their day in the 5’s, they may be a morning lark (early bird).
We all have chronotypes which are natural preferences of the body for wakefulness and sleep. An individual's chronotype is influenced by genetics and driven by their circadian rhythm.
Each group operates along different circadian lines, and there is pretty much nothing owls can do to become larks and vice versa.
Morning larks - Those who prefer to sleep earlier in the evening and wake earlier in the morning
Night owls - Those who feel best late at night, stay up later and want to sleep in later in the mornings.
Your child showing signs of being more wakeful and alert in the morning or at night might be a sign of what their sleep patterns will be like growing up but studies have also shown that between birth and 8 years of age, owls occurred in less than 2 percent of children at every age. The majority of young children are larks and larks sleep better with early bedtimes and therefore earlier mornings. So if your little one is waking early, ready to start the day, this is absolutely biologically normal.
With all this being said, please remember, an early start is between 5-6am, and it doesn't impact the rest of their day. If your little one is waking prior to this OR the 5-6am wakes are having an impact on their overall day, it might be worthwhile having a 30min chat with our team to see if we can help troubleshoot. Sometimes its the simplest of tweaks to help create that sleep phase shift and get you that sleep in you deserve. You can book in with our amazing team here.
