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Waking up early

What to do when your toddler is waking up too early in the morning

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Originally published in Today's Parent November 2010

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I call my daughter-in-law early one morning and she answers in that sleepy, groggy voice that tells me she hasn’t had much sleep. Not surprising, since she has a five-month-old baby — but when I ask, it turns out he’s not the problem.

Two-year-old Xavier has taken to waking up before four in the morning, ready to start his day.

Melanie Gushnowski, a Calgary parent educator and child development specialist, says: “It’s common for toddlers to get up early in the morning — around 6 a.m. — and many go through times of getting up even earlier.”

The most important question, she says, focuses on whether the child is getting enough sleep. If he’s going to sleep at 7 p.m. and cheerfully hopping out of bed at 5 a.m., he may be one of those kids who needs less sleep than most. A 2007 Swiss study found that at one year of age, some healthy, normal children slept a total of 11.4 hours and others slept 16.5 hours. That’s a difference of five hours.

On the other hand, if your child wakes up cranky and mopes around for the first while, you need to investigate other possible reasons for her early waking.

Gushnowski suggests looking at changes in the child’s life first to see if any of those might be contributing to the problem: “Has he shifted his nap times recently? Reached some developmental milestones [such as walking]? Had a new baby added to the household? Have you taken away his pacifier or bottle?” A changed nap time may mean his whole sleep pattern has now shifted. Research shows that children who have accomplished new developmental milestones tend not to sleep as well, which can include early rising, and that the stress of a new sibling can also cause increased wakefulness. Finally, a child who had previously been using a pacifier or bottle to get back to sleep may now wake in the morning and find he’s not really tired enough to go back to sleep without his soother — so he wakes you up instead!

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