We all know that having a baby often means lie-ins are a thing of the past. Any time from 6am is fair game for a baby or young child to start the day! 

However

Before 6am wake up's, particularly if happening regularly and leaving everyone feeling a bit worse for wear, can be something you can improve...if you can establish why it might be happening. So, let's look at some of the reasons:

1. In a baby under 6 months, their circadian rhythm (aka Body clock - their sense of night and day) is still in development so they may wake early simply because 5:30am to them is no different really from 4pm...You can help their circadian rhythm development along with creating a sensory environment conducive with sleep i.e. when it's night-time (which it probably still is for you at 5:30am), keep things dark and quiet, minimise excitement or behaviour that might suggest it's time to wake and start the day. It can also help to identify if anything happens at that time in the environment e.g. the front door slams as your neighbour leaves? The heating comes on? Can you mask or remove these disturbances? Meanwhile, from when you are happy to wake, throw open the curtains, start chatting to your baby ("good morning! Shall we go and play?") etc. reintroduce the sights and sounds of the business of daytime! 

2. Following from above, Hormonal influences can play a big part as the early morning is when our body is producing increasing amounts of cortisol (the stress hormone that drives us to get up and go!) and reducing the production of melatonin (the sleepy hormone). It's because of this that any one of us may find it harder to get back to sleep if waking in the early hours - we simply don't have the internal drive we did at the start of the night! I know, for me, that when I wake early, my brain can often decide it's time to re-start worrying about that thing I was too tired to worry about the night before, or start stressing about what I need to remember to get at the shops later because "Hey Ellie! It's morning! Let's get up and go!"....no thanks brain...it's 5am. So, for your little one who perhaps manages to get back to sleep quite easily during the earlier and middle parts of the night, they may simply need more external support to relax and re-settle. 

3. Perhaps Bedtime is too early? It's a very westernised ideal that our little one's should settle for bed at 7pm and sleep through until 7am. For some babies and children, this is just not possible for them. They simply don't need all that sleep, so by 5am, they're just done. Try moving bedtime back later and seeing if that gives you more time to doze in the morning before your morning lark jumps into your bed. 

4. Or...bedtime too late? It sounds counterintuitive but it's possible that your little one is actually too tired when they go to bed. While you celebrate the 5 minutes it took for your little one to fall asleep, this is actually a sign that later in the night, or early in the morning, may not be so fun...Being too tired means the body has to compensate with higher levels of cortisol (remember: this is the stress hormone)...then, when sleepy hormones are naturally decreasing in the early hours, there's more of this get up and go flooding through your little one's system so...they do. Perhaps try identifying their optimal bedtime by looking at the days they sleep in more...or by looking at how long they normally last during the daytime between sleeps and try and replicate this in the evening.

5. Much like point 3 above...How much sleep is your little one having in 24 hours? Perhaps, their sleep needs have changed a bit and they now need an hour or 2 less in 24 hours...So, look at where that 1 or 2 hours can be taken from? Is it, as above, pushing bedtime later? Or, is it a nap that they no longer need?

6. Do they have a consistent routine? In point 1, we talked about your young baby needing help for their body-clock to adjust to night and day rather than one big 24hrs of naps. Well, even as your little one gets older, a general routine and consistency in their 24hours can help to mean their body knows when it is time for play and when it is time for rest. Try introducing a wake-up time and a bedtime and sticking to it as much as you can. 

7. I don't know about you...but by the time I wake up...I'm pretty ready for breakfast. Now imagine it's 5am and your last meal was at 5pm the night before? Or even earlier if your little one is at some sort of childcare? Perhaps the early rising is as simple as their tummy waking them with a grumble! Can you offer a bedtime snack that's filling but not going to just sit uncomfortably in their tummy all night? Can you move dinner later?

Did any of these help?