Don’t we all just adore the beautiful faces of our babies when we first wake up in the morning? Nothing starts the day off on such a high note as the look in the eyes of your little one when they’re first getting up for the day.


But when that moment hits at 5:00 in the morning, it can undoubtedly take the blissful nature out of the situation. 


An early morning wake-up is rough on everyone. Your little one is likely not adequately rested and may have a rough day, and you, as the parent, could certainly use an extra hour or two of sleep! 


Suppose you find yourself struggling to cope with those early wake-ups. In that case, I’m happy to tell you that there’s almost always an explanation for why it’s happening, as well as a solution close at hand. 


Check out the following tips and see if anything applies to your baby’s situation, then make the appropriate changes. Then, you should start seeing a turn toward those blissful mornings you’ve been striving for.

• Assess their Sleep Environment:

It’s super beneficial to your baby’s sleep that their sleep environment is conducive to a good night’s rest. Consider factors like room temperature, noise levels, and lighting. 


Babies are more likely to wake up early if they’re too hot or cold, so ensure they’re dressed comfortably. (Typically, one layer more than an adult would wear while sleeping in the same environment.) 


Use white noise machines to drown out any disruptive sounds. Dim the lights in the room during nighttime and invest in blackout curtains to block out early morning sunlight.

• Establish a Consistent Bedtime Routine:

Babies thrive on repetition and predictability; a structured bedtime routine can work wonders for their sleep schedule. Create a soothing routine that signals to your baby that it’s time to wind down. 


It could include activities like a warm bath (which is my personal preference as the “first step.”), gentle massage, lullabies, or reading a bedtime story. Consistency is critical here, as it helps your baby anticipate sleep and prepares their body for a nice, long snooze.

• Monitor Daytime Naps:

Surprisingly, too much daytime sleep can contribute to early morning wake-ups. So ensure your baby isn’t getting excessive sleep during the day, which may make them less tired at night. 


Strike a balance between appropriate nap durations and an age-appropriate schedule. Observe your baby’s sleep patterns and gradually adjust nap times and lengths as needed to find the sweet spot.

• Adjust Bedtime:

I know it seems counterintuitive, but an earlier bedtime can often help combat early morning wake-ups. Overtiredness can lead to restless sleep and more frequent awakenings. 


Try a slightly earlier bedtime to ensure your little one is well-rested but not overtired. A well-rested baby is more likely to sleep longer and wake up at a reasonable hour.

• Encourage Self-Soothing Skills:

Babies who have learned to self-soothe are more likely to go back to sleep independently if they wake up too early. Help your baby develop these skills by putting them down, drowsy but awake (depending on the baby’s age - putting down awake after 3 months old). 


Give them a chance to settle themselves back to sleep before intervening. Then, if they cry, wait a few minutes to see if they can self-soothe. Over time, they’ll become more skilled at drifting off to dreamland independently.

• Stick to your minimum:

If your baby has slept from 7:30 PM to 6:00 AM in the past, then they’re capable of doing so regularly. 


When baby wakes up at 5:00 as opposed to 3:00 AM, we’re more likely to give in and assume that they’re just not tired anymore, but if you’re shooting for a 7:00 wake up as “the norm,” then you should treat anything earlier than that as a nighttime wake-up and respond the same way you usually do if baby wakes up in the middle of the night.


Early morning wake-ups in babies can be challenging, but you can improve their sleep patterns with patience and a few tweaks to their sleep routine. 


Remember, each baby is unique, and what works for one may not work for another. So be consistent, observe your baby’s cues, and be flexible in your approach. 


Before you know it, those early wake-up calls will become a thing of the past, and you’ll all be enjoying a few more blissful hours of sleep in the morning!

If you plan on addressing your little one’s sleep issues, I want to prepare you for something.

It’s possible that things are going to get worse before they get better.
For some babies, that might mean a night or two of more intense crying at bedtime; for some, it might mean more like four or five.

That probably doesn’t come as a big surprise. If you have a child that doesn’t sleep well, you’ve probably already established an elaborate routine to respond to your baby’s bedtime. 

It’s usually a combination of feeding, bouncing, getting them settled in your arms, popping in a pacifier, and getting them into their crib at the exact right moment.

Why? Because if you try to do it any other way, your baby will cry. And if you don’t give in, they’ll cry even louder and harder. It’s a common response to behaviour modification known as an extinction burst.

EXTINCTION BURST

An extinction burst occurs when a behaviour that has been previously reinforced suddenly stops being reinforced. In other words, when a baby is used to receiving a specific response or reward for a particular behaviour, and that response or reward is suddenly removed, the baby will increase the intensity and frequency of that behaviour in an attempt to get what they want. In this case, the rocking, shushing, or nursing to sleep that they’re accustomed to.

Extinction bursts can occur in various situations, from sleep training to weaning from breastfeeding. They can be particularly challenging for parents to navigate, as it can be difficult to tell if the baby is seeking attention or if they’re genuinely upset. 

However, it’s essential to understand that extinction bursts are a normal part of a baby’s development and are not a sign that something’s wrong.

So, how can parents cope with these bedtime extinction bursts? 
One word. Consistency.

CONSISTENCY

Suppose you have decided that a particular behaviour is no longer acceptable or that a specific reward will no longer be given. In that case, it’s crucial to stick to that decision and not give in to the baby’s increased efforts to elicit the desired response.
 
Staying consistent isn’t going to be easy, I know. The increased intensity of the baby’s crying will be stressful and occasionally overwhelming. Still, it is important to remain calm and consistent. 

Get your partner involved or call in the support team, whether it’s your parents, your in-laws, your friends, or a professional sleep consultant so that you can take a break when things get to be too much for you.

As tough as things get, don’t forget this crucial fact. Extinction bursts are temporary. Good sleep habits are not. 

Once you’ve come out the other side of this experience, you can look forward to years of your little one sleeping soundly through the night. 

Need help to stay consistent and get through your child's extinction burst?
​Book your Free 20-minute Sleep Evaluation Call with me and I can explain how I can help make this transition to independent sleep a lot smoother. 

If you plan on having kids, you should pencil in a few accessories into the budget. A crib, a stroller, and a high chair are all mandatory when bringing home a new baby.


And, of course, you’re going to need a baby monitor. I honestly don’t think I’ve worked with a family without a pretty sophisticated baby monitor set up in the nursery. These days, they fall right alongside those other items as “essential” baby equipment.


And hey, not for no good reason, right? Baby monitors, even the most basic ones, provide some much-needed peace of mind for parents when they’re not in the room with their little ones. 


Unfortunately, they’re a bit of a double-edged sword because, for all the peace of mind they can provide and have the exact opposite effect. I often see parents running into their baby’s room the moment they hear the slightest peep out of the monitor. 


They check to make sure baby’s in a comfortable position, they check their temperature to make sure they’re not too hot or too cold, they check their diaper to see if they might need a change, and after they’ve confirmed that everything’s as it should be, they head back out of the room, sit down for a few minutes until they hear another rustle come through the speaker, and then they’re back in action, repeating the whole process.


Seriously. I’ve seen it happen with more than a few families. And I assure you, I’m not exaggerating even a little bit!


Now, if you’re reading this and thinking, “What’s so strange about that?” then it’s possible that you are, in fact, addicted to your baby monitor.


Interesting little side note here, did you know that the first baby monitor was invented back in 1937 as a result of the infamous Lindbergh baby kidnapping? 
​It’s true! Eugene MacDonald, then president of Zenith (a familiar name in electronics for all of us old-timers), heard about the incident and commissioned designer Isamu Noguchi to create a radio device to transmit sound from the baby’s room to a receiver elsewhere in the house. Good luck snatching a baby out of their crib now, you stupid kidnappers.


Over the years, monitors have become increasingly sophisticated. First, they switched from radio to digital signals, did away with the wires, and added two-way communication so parents could speak to their babies as well as hear them; then came the video monitors, wi-fi capability for better picture and sound, and now, now they can monitor a baby’s heart rate, oxygen levels, movements, breathing, sleeping position, even whether or not baby’s got a wet diaper.


And therein lies the problem.


On the one hand, I think it’s great that we have the technology to monitor our baby’s vital signs and make sure they’re not in a dangerous sleeping position. 


On the other hand, it’s not exactly good for your mental wellness or your baby’s sleep if you’re in a state of hyper-vigilance throughout the night and rushing in to “fix” things every time baby fusses a little, or the temperature in the nursery rises by a half a degree.


Now, I know the absolutely gut-wrenching anxiety that parents have about keeping their little ones safe. There’s absolutely no instinct in the world more powerful than the desire to protect your kids. Still, there’s a big difference between exercising due care and obsessing over unnecessary details. 

Bear in mind that baby monitors have not proven to be effective in reducing the incidence of SIDS.

Bear in mind that baby monitors have not proven to be effective in reducing the incidence of SIDS, so even with the millions, probably billions of these machines in nurseries around the world, they haven’t really done anything to prevent the one major catastrophe that parents are desperately trying to avoid.


Again, I don’t want to discourage the use of a monitor. But if you’re going to use one, remember what they were designed for. They’re for peace of mind and to inform you of a potential emergency, not to act as a call button demanding immediate attention every time you hear your baby stirring at night. 


Allowing them to fall back to sleep when they wake up in the night is important and actually essential if you want them to learn the skills they need to enjoy nights of restful, rejuvenating sleep regularly.


If you want to minimize the potential for SIDS, injuries, or other nighttime mishaps, check out the American Academy of Pediatrics guide to safe sleep. You’ll find some incredibly valuable information there. 


Most notably, put your baby on their back to sleep, keep the crib clear of any possible airway obstructions, don’t smoke, breastfeed if possible, and use a firm mattress and a tightly secured fitted sheet. That will go a lot further toward keeping your baby safe than even the most technologically advanced baby monitor ever could.


In short, if your baby monitor gives you peace of mind, keep using it. However, it’s time to make a change if it’s stressing you out. 

Ready to make a change for your family?
I can help you teach your baby or toddler independent sleep skills so they have control over their own sleep so they are sleeping peacefully through the night and napping like a champ. All while supporting you, mom, to gain peace of mind around baby's ability to sleep well and letting go of the baby monitor addiction. 

Book Your Free 20-minute Sleep Evaluation Call now and lets chat about what's going on in your family and how I can help. 

Daylight savings starts each spring season and this year is shows up on Sunday, March 12, 2023.

When it's time to “spring forward” the clocks it can be a dreaded time for parents of young children because with this, comes an adjustment that does not happen immediately. 

This is because children tend to be more structured in their bedtime and wake up around the same time each morning and that is why people usually
can see a greater effect on children when the time changes. 

However, there are some things you can do to help make the transition to the new
time go a little smoother. 

​My recommendation is to leave your clock alone Saturday night.  Wake up Sunday morning, have breakfast, then go around your house and change your clocks.  Psychologically, it will feel much better for everyone if you wait until Sunday morning to change the time. 

My best advice for children to help them with the change is to split the difference with the old time and the new time. 

                                                            How does that work?

Almost every sleep book on the market talks about the word “drowsy.” If we’re working with newborns, for example, many books state that the goal is to put your newborn down drowsy but awake. And in most cases, that works just fine, but sometimes it doesn’t.


I’m here today to talk about when it doesn’t.


If we’ve moved beyond the newborn phase, let’s say with a baby aged four months and up, drowsiness can actually become a loose prop association. 


Let’s think about it this way: sleep is a journey, and if you are at point A, which would be wide awake, and are trying to get to point B, which is asleep, how you make the journey becomes essential. 


If you read the Sleep Sense program, you’ll know it’s the journey we must fix for our child to start sleeping well. The goal is to have the child learn to make that journey all on their own — or independently, we like to say — so that when they have a naturally occurring wake-up during the night, they can make the journey back to sleep easily and on their own.


In some cases, if we help our baby into the journey by getting them drowsy with either rocking or feeding, then when they have a naturally occurring wake-up sometime in the night or during a nap, they won’t be able to get back to sleep from point A to point B. So they will want you to return to the room and help them get started on the journey.


This becomes problematic for both baby and parent because for your baby to return to sleep, you will need to assist them at least part of the way, which becomes frustrating on both sides. That’s why the goal is to teach the baby how to fall asleep from point A. Unfortunately, the only way to do this is to be very cautious in your bedtime or nap time routine so your baby is not entering the drowsy phase.


So what does drowsiness look like?


Drowsiness can be tricky to read because, in some cases, what you would consider drowsiness could be the first sleep stage. So here are some things you want to keep an eye on.

1. Zoning out, or what we often call “the seven-mile stare.” If you notice your baby looking off into space, this can signify drowsiness. The best way to avoid it is to talk to your baby, tickle your baby, or remove your baby from the nipple or the bottle before resuming feeding again.
2. Heavy blinking. Make sure your baby’s eyes look alert and are not blinking heavily. This can be a sign of drowsiness. The best way to avoid this is to talk to your baby, sing, or give them a little tickle to keep them alert. 
3. Closing the eyes for several minutes at a time while having the bedtime feed. Again, you want to ensure your baby’s eyes stay alert and open through the entire feed. 

The goal is to make sure the baby remains alert and wide awake through the entire bedtime routine and goes into the crib, ready to start the sleep journey from point A.


You might notice that your baby does a little bit more protesting suddenly. This is a good sign that your baby was actually relying on you to help them to sleep in some way, and they are struggling slightly with the process of going from start to finish all on their own. But don’t worry — the good news is that within a couple of nights, the baby will be able to make the journey independently and start sleeping through the night.


If you’d like to chat more about your baby’s sleep challenges, I’m more than happy to offer a complimentary 20-minute evaluation call to see if we can get to the bottom of your struggles; I can explain how I can help! You can book your Free chat below. ​