Is your baby awake for the day before 6am? Not happy with that?
Days are longer and mornings are brighter and here are some helpful tips to help with the early rising problem!
- Keep the bedroom at a comfortable warm temperature, between 19 and 22 degrees Celsius is just about right!
- Dress baby appropriately as the temperature drops in the early hours.
- Ensure your daytimes include exposure to sunlight. Obviously this is weather permitting but it is important!
- Ensure your child is not overtired by the time bedtime comes around. Note: anything earlier than 6am is to be considered a “night waking” and should be treated as such!
- Ensuring your baby or child gets adequate nutrition during the daytime is incredibly important. If your baby is nursing all night long, it means baby is not getting sufficient food during the day, so it’s important you switch this over.
- The bedroom must be super dark. (morning sun is the pits!). Do whatever you need to do, to ensure the bedroom is dark.
- A later bedtime does NOT ensure a later wake time for the day. It’s actually the opposite! Put baby to bed nice and early the night before. Anything after 7pm is probably going to cause additional night wakings.
- A regular evening bedtime routine at the end of the day is important but it doesn’t have to take an hour, (suggestions, warm bath, baby massage, dim lighting, read a book, sing a song, no TV or screen time)
- White noise playing for the entire sleep period. That is, turn it on when baby goes to sleep and turn it off when baby gets up for the day.
Finally, if your baby or child is just not sleeping in until a reasonable time, I would be happy to help. Remember – if your baby or child is reliant on sleep associations to get to sleep, or back to sleep, the above tips will help but sleep training using my gentle and hands on methods will ensure restful nights and deep restorative naps.