Is 5.30am a normal wake time?

[Sleepbabysleeppls]

DD 11mo has been waking between 5-5.30am for months. I have tried many things.

Anyway, the jury seems to be out on whether this is a ‘problem’ that needs solving. The majority of literature on the internet seems to suggest anything before 6am is problematic. Sarah Ockwell-Smith says 5am is very normal.

I’m a FTM so would be great to get others views/experiences. Currently feel like I’m the only one in my RL circle of friends battling this. But then maybe they have wakes in the night whilst my DD sleeps through mostly.

What are your experiences - is this a problem that needs solving or will it get later in time? Not sure how I would ever drop to one nap with such an early wake.

Can you go to bed at 10 pm?
I'd take a child that sleeps through the night and wakes at 5 over one who wakes up during the night.

Focus not on whether it's normal, but on whether it's going to work for you. 5am was not going to work for our family so we treated all wake ups before 6am as a middle of the night wake up. Then slowly pushed the time forward. 7am is now wake up time and it works for us. Good luck, sleep is the hardest nut to crack.

I'm 63 and it's Still a normal wake time for me so it won't necessarily get later with time. If you need to get out of the house before 7 it won't be a problem. If you work evenings and don't get to bed until midnight it will be. Basically, if it's causing difficulties for you it's a problem but if it's not it isn't.

4.30 - 5.30 was normal for us for a very long time. From experience there was nothing that fixed that. I truly believe it's the hardest sleep problem to solve - 'treating it like a middle of the night wake-up' just resulted in an hour of angry shouting as DD was fully aware it wasn't the middle of the night! We've just moved from a one to two bed place so she's in her own room and it's very gradually improving but that may also just be time (she's nearly two now, this has been going on for well over a year). The good news is though - with the move she went back to waking up once or twice overnight after sleeping through for ages and I can confirm that night wakings are much worse for your energy levels than an early morning (though it doesn't always feel that way when the baby alarm goes at 5am...) so you've probably got it better than your friends

I think it is normal for babies, less normal for adults. So it is a problem in the sense parents would like to change it, but not a problem in the sense that it negatively affects your baby. I also think it's one of the hardest bits of sleep to change, but that's not to say it is forever!

Personally I would ride it out with early bed for you. At 10m mine were still waking 1-3 times a night but waking a bit later in the morning. Other things will change sleep, and like you say, things may naturally change with the transition to 1 nap, although that could be ages away. When is bedtime?

Thanks all for your thoughts. I do try to get to sleep between 9-9.30pm, so if he sleeps through, which he does the majority of the time, I am getting 8 hours, but for some reason still feel exhausted with such an early start! But I think the main issue is that I feel the early start is a problem and therefore I’m obsessing and worrying about it constantly, thinking it’s something I can, or should be trying to solve. I guess if it’s common then that would be give me some reassurance.

I am realistic, I don’t expect him to sleep in until 8am (even 7!) but I would love to be able to start my day at 6am and for him too, I do think he gets miserable very quickly with such an early start!

Bedtime is between 7-7.30pm and he has 2.5 hours of naps spread over 2 naps.

I think the short answer is, it's pretty normal - so if your primary issue is that you're stressing over it, definitely don't do that! As long as he seems well rested and isn't grumpy and overtired all day, and if you're managing than all good (but yeah, those early mornings do feel brutal... and it's only gonna get worse with the return of winter. At least when it was light at 5 we could pretend it was more reasonable!)

5.30am is normal, my second used to do to this until he turned 2 and started nursery. Then it was 6.30am and now he's nearly 7 he's a pain in the arse getting up in the mornings!

Just roll with it it won't last forever.

@GoneWithTheWine1 that gives me hope. Do you think starting nursery helped make him more tired or did he start having less sleep there?

@houseargh that’s the thing, he does seem grumpy sometimes particularly in the mornings! I know I can’t force him to sleep longer though if that’s just his natural rhythm

I always treated anything before 7 as a middle of the night feed/ wake. Kept lights off. No noise/ talking. Low stimulation feed lying down. Back to sleep. Do you have black out blinds?

It's very normal with the time they are going to bed. A lot of babies will only sleep 10 hours overnight (whether with a few wake ups or straight through) which would make sense with the early start.
My DD only sleeps 10 hours overnight so she goes to bed later so that I don't have to wake up so early haha.

At exactly this age my ds woke up on the dot at 4.30 demanding to be “up”. And then wanted to go back to bed about 6.45, just when I needed to get up for work!

was exhausting. Dh and I took it in turns to get up and sit on the sofa with a hot drink while he crawled all over.

HOWEVER, if only lasted 6 weeks or so then in an instant he went back to waking at 6/7am. It wasn’t anything we did and it wasn’t related to wanting milk as we stopped overnight milk a few months before.

If my son made it to 6am it was a good day! 5.30 was his usual time. He's 19 now and is up at 6am most mornings to hit the gym before work (always an energetic kid).

Normal in my house! Although now he’s one, often he’ll be happy chilling in his cot with his bear until 6am if I need an extra half hour or so.

Normal here too. DTs are 11 now and still up at 6am, they're just made that way.

Both of mine - now aged 19 and 10- woke up at 5.30am until they were about 6 and gradually it got later and later. For my own mental health I decided to accept it as normal as battling against it just made me more stressed than just accepting it and getting on with it. I must admit that I just got to the point where I’d frisbee in an iPad as they got a bit older and could stay in bed on their own for an hour or so to give me a bit longer. But of course when they’re very little you just have to get up and crack on. It’s very exhausting.

I truly believe it's the hardest sleep problem to solve - 'treating it like a middle of the night wake-up' just resulted in an hour of angry shouting as DD was fully aware it wasn't the middle of the night!

How did your DD know it wasn't the middle of the night @houseargh? Genuine not snarky question (which you have to make clear on MN!)

I think it's very common. However, we could not cope with that in this house so I do feel your pain and deeply sympathise.

One thing that I think does impact this is the child's overall routine - not just nap times etc. I think if it's not working for you and you've done all the normal "treat it like a middle of the night wake up" and "shift bed times around to try change things" and it's not working, then you need to shift their entire routine, almost as if you are in a different time zone. So if you want him to wake up an hour later, everything has to be an hour later - breakfast, walks, playdates, naps, lunch, dinner, bath etc.

Sadly normal at this age. It does get better though

@SavingsThreads the same way you or I would at 8am...her body clock, I presume? At the start and in the middle of the night babies / toddlers / adults have 'sleep debt' which means that they will eventually fall asleep, though darkness / shhing / feeding / rocking etc can help it happen faster/easier. But after you've slept a full night you no longer have that sleep debt, so no amount of keeping it dark and low stimulation is going to kid your nearly two year old who is standing in their crib, full of energy and shrieking about breakfast / Cocomelon etc! That's why I always roll my eyes at people who say they deal with this by treating it like a middle of the night waking...those people don't have an early riser, they have a kid who is programmed to wake at a more normal hour, who happened to wake up a bit early. Not to say that approach can't be helpful, for a baby / toddler who has just started waking early it's worth trying lots of different things to see if you break the habit - but in some cases, I really believe only time makes the difference (if it does!)

Unfortunately my 18m old would vote normal. His circadian rhythm is so hard wired to 5am, no amount of day time activity, changes to naps, or the latest bed time in the world won't change it.

I think it's pretty normal. Both of mine had that sort of waking time for some periods of early childhood. Sleep is never fixed for too long IME as the total sleep they need over 24 hours gradually reduces and the proportion of that in night/naps changes too.

I sympathise - I'm a natural 'lark' myself, which is probably a large part of why both my children are, but for me morning ideally starts between 6-7 rather than between 5-6! I was never able to persuade them that eg 5.15 was a 'night waking' as PP said, and (for me at least) I think some of that was just part of our daily rhythm and that my own body (whilst still tired) was recognising it as early morning and not night time. I think babies and toddlers (perhaps especially bedsharing, breastfeeding babies and toddlers like mine) are learning all of this subtle stuff far more powerfully than my deliberate "this is how I handle a night waking" performance.

I have had some lovely early morning moments with each of mine - watching the sun rise through the window, drinking coffee and listening to the radio - even at early hours when I'd much rather still be asleep. It honestly doesn't last forever. By about age 3 I could pass them the ipad, or park them in front of cbeebies with some snacks and go back to bed for a bit. By 5 they could get up entirely alone. I think I really only doze once they're up, but it is much more manageable. Eldest is now 10 and wakes a bit later than I do. And we've never found it difficult to wake up in good time for nursery or school 😅 our family quality time is often in the morning rather than the evening.

Sorry longwinded... basically I think it does change and potentially you can influence that, but also it is normal and you can lean into it and make the best of it while it lasts.

Is it a problem for you? It would be a massive problem for me as I'm not naturally a morning person/early riser - but lots of people prefer young children to have an early bedtime and accept that there's an early morning.
It really depends on your preferences, there's no right or wrong.

If it was me I would have a later bedtime and later wake time. I always treated anything before 6.30am as a night waking and never got out of bed before 7 (even if it meant bringing the baby in with us - it would be dark, quiet and lying down in bed time).
As others have said, you need to treat a routine shift the same way you would a clock change.
If wake time is going to be an hour later, then first nap needs to be an hour later, then lunch, then afternoon nap, then tea, then bed.
But depends if you feel an 8/8.30 bedtime is worth it for the later morning!
Also the change in the whole routine needs to be consistent and done for a couple of weeks before you know if it worked - often people put their baby to bed an hour late once, are surprised they wake up at their normal time or even earlier, and decide it's impossible.

My almost 12 year old still often wakes up at 5.30. Always has, just started reading/ entertaining himself as he got older so we can sleep until 6.30. Never been an issue, he's only just started later nights though, even at weekend was always out by 8.30 until very recently.

Oh also to say - putting her down at 8pm has definitely helped. We've shifted our schedule around so we all eat dinner together at 6.30pm, then one of us does the dishes / tidies while the other does bedtime. We actually get way more quality baby-free evening time now than when we were feeding her alone, doing bedtime at 7 and then cooking for ourselves after bedtime - so I would also recommend looking at your own schedule in the evenings to see if there are ways you can tweak it to be more manageable (along with putting him down a bit later).