How to stop your child waking too early (Early Risers)

My son is an early waker and although we’ve never managed to stop it, we’ve spent time researching a few techniques on the way so I thought I’d share what I've found. 

We’ve discovered that some children are just early risers or ‘Larks’ and there isn’t much you can do about it.  If they wake at a similar time each day no matter what time they go to bed and if they wake and seem full of energy as though they’ve had enough sleep then your child could be a Lark too! 

However, some children can have their waking time changed and here are some tips to try to do it:

• Can you move their nap time (if they still nap) to see if this affects their wake time? Are they napping too long in the day so they need less sleep at night?
• Some parents think putting a child to bed ‘earlier’ can actually make them need more sleep and make them sleep later.
• Is there something in the environment waking them e.g early morning sunlight? If so, try some black out blinds or black out curtain liners.
• Are they waking early due to needing the toilet? Could you try lifting your child to the toilet when you go to bed instead? Sometimes you can do this whilst they are half a sleep if you use a potty in their darkened room.
• Are they getting cold? If so, think about having the heating come on early enough to keep them warm around their normal wake time.
• Hunger? Are they waking early because they are hungry? Do they need more milk at bedtime or more calories in the day?  If your child is older then you could consider leaving a drink and biscuit or cracker by their bed for a morning snack (as long as they are old enough to safely eat alone).
• Thirst? Are they thirsty? Would a drink by the bed help?
• Are they still tired but waking because they don’t like sleeping alone? You could consider a sleep training programme to help them learn to settle back off to sleep alone or many families just let the child join them in bed so everyone can go back to sleep for a bit longer. We now have a TV in our room, so we can all snuggle in bed and whilst the kids watch some cartoons we can doze for an extra 15minutes.
• Have you tried moving bedtime later to see if this impacts on your childs wake time?
• If your child wakes due to noises then some parents try ‘white noise’ CD’s which you can programme to come on quietly about an hour before your childs normal wake times, to mask other sounds. Or you could try using a radio alarm.
• If your child wants to nap within a few hours of waking up then they probably didn’t sleep long enough. Try to delay that nap by 20minutes every day until it’s 1-2 hours later and see if that affects their sleep pattern.
• You could try the ‘Wake-to-sleep’ technique. The idea is that you gently rouse your toddler from their sleep an hour before they usually wake, and then leave them to go back to sleep, in order to change their sleeping pattern. The idea is that after 5-7 days you won’t have to wake them and they should sleep longer.  

If your child won't sleep longer then here are some ways you can try to deal with it and get a bit more sleep yourself:

• For older children, some parents use a special clock which helps your child know whether it’s morning time or not. You can then ask your child to stay in their room till an agreed time e.g 6am. This would never work in my house but I have friends that find it works well for them. An alternative is to use a clock radio for this same purpose or even put a night light on a timer switch and say it’s morning when the light comes on.
•  If your child wakes early and can’t go back to sleep then leave a box of toys by their bed – change it frequently so it’s interesting and fun – and ask your child to play for a bit. Or give them a tape player/CD player with a childrens CD.
• Let them come into your bed for a snuggle and maybe put the TV on whilst you doze.

Good luck trying some of these!

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