Early Waking Suggestions

Wriggling round the cot

If your toddler is under 18 months, it may be that they are moving about in the cot, standing up and finding it hard to get back into a sleepy position in bed. If that sounds familiar, we recommend looking at one of the attached sleeping bag options, which stop crawling and standing in bed. You can be confident that your child is safe and still in a sleepy position in bed, so you are less likely to feel you need to check on them if they wake early. Just leave them to go back to sleep on their own and you will be surprised at how quickly the early waking may be solved.

With older and very mobile babies, the Safe T Sleepwrap is very useful for keeping your baby in a safe and relaxed sleep position. We often hear about babies starting to sleep through the night once they are sleeping in a Safe T Sleep Sleepwrap, as they are staying in a comfortable position all night. It works very well with either a regular swaddling wrap, a fitted wrap such as a Miracle Blanket or a sleeping bag.

Check out our Safe Bedding options

Darkness

We recommend using thick black-out lining on your child's curtains, so they can't see what is happening outside. Even if you also use a night-light, using black-out lining keeps the bedroom feeling cozy and 'night-time' even when the sun starts to come up.

You can buy black-out lining at Spotlight or other curtain fabric stores. We also sell the handy Sleeptight Portable Blackout Blind.

Review our Window Blackouts Options

Resettling techniques for early waking

It pays to think of early waking the same as night waking, and in many cases it is a matter of teaching your child they can resettle themself at 5 or 5.30am. This is particularly true if you have been reinforcing their early waking with bottles or letting them get in your bed, and now have decided to get tough!

For starters read our information on teaching your child to self settle. This covers the different techniques, such as controlled crying, cry it out and more gentle approaches.

We also have a detailed article on Gentle Sleep Training Techniques for toddlers, which can be good for the early morning if you use them consistently.

We find the following work especially well for early waking:

1. Just ignore the waking! Yes your toddler is likely to have a screaming tantrum that you are not coming in to get them out of their cot for a cuddle and a nice warm bottle. But just ignore the tantrum the same way you would if it was a tantrum for lollies at the supermarket..... It might last for an hour and then they go back to sleep. The next morning may last 30 mins etc. But often it is simply a matter of ignoring the waking so your child gets the message that you are not coming in with whatever they usually get at that time.

2. Verbal reinforcement - go in after 5 minutes and say 'it's still night-time, please go back to sleep'. Put them back in bed without making a fuss, shut the door and wait 10 minutes. Yes they may be hammering on the door or screaming. Go in and again put them back in bed, say 'it's still night-time, go back to sleep'. And repeat after 15 minutes. See the Sleepeasy Solution DVD for this technique. You will need to shut the door or use a stairgate, and even perhaps lock the door from the outside at this time for a few mornings until your child learns what you expect.

Just don't wake mum up!

If despite all the above suggestions, your child continues to wake earlier than you like, you may choose a plan of keeping them in bed until morning time (even if they are not asleep).

The best option for this is to leave a pile on books on their bedside table or at the bottom of the cot, so they can have look at these until the radio comes on or the clock shows morning time. You might want to put the books in bed after your toddler is asleep, if they would otherwise want to read them at bedtime.

Older toddlers and children can also be easily taught to turn on a DVD or the TV.....eg DVD is allowed from 6am, not to wake mum up until 6.30am etc. (And yes I have used that technique when my Jack was going through an early waking phase!).

Positive reinforcement

If your child is over the age of 3, they may respond well to some positive reinforcement along with the above suggestions.

Keep the process really simple - either a simple reward for staying in bed until a set time, or a simple star chart with 3-4 days on it.

Make the rewards simple and desirable, such as small car, sheet of stickers etc.

The Morning Fairy might work well with your child - say if you can stay in bed until the music comes onto the clock, the Morning Fairy will have left you a little treat with mummy.