There are many reasons why your 9 month old baby wakes up early in the morning around 5-6 am and doesn’t want to go back to sleep. If waking up early isn’t working for her family and she’d like to try extending the time of waking up early in the morning, we need to identify the possible causes of waking up early and treat each problem.

Common issues to address are:

* Too much light enters the bedroom in the morning.

* House/environmental noise

*The baby is not warm enough for the morning temperatures

*The reward of an early breakfast

* Waking up for a milk shot

*Habits and routine already established as a younger baby, from an early start to the day

* The time of the first day of sleep.

*Your baby’s bedtime at night

*Genetics! Your baby is made up of two parents.

So once you decide what the possible causes are, you can start playing around with some solutions. Always try each test for at least a week so it has an effect on your baby’s biological clock and be patient.

*It is easy to adjust the amount of light that enters the bedroom with appropriate curtains for the windows that are sought. Whatever is useful will work, it doesn’t have to be professional or expensive to be effective, just block out the light. Think of an old duvet cover, a dark sheet, large towels, a picnic blanket, coated fabric.

*Sometimes we can train the family to be quiet at home early in the morning, but sometimes external factors affect your baby’s awakening. Try playing soft sleep music such as “Dream Music” on repeat throughout the night to cover up some of the noise and wean baby off music in a few months.

*Over 9 months Babies move around a lot in the crib and should be dressed for the night, assuming they are tossing and turning and not under warm sheets all night. Think about how you would feel sleeping in what you have dressed your baby in, if she was sleeping on top of her blankets without a partner. Excess blankets become a SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome) risk if your baby moves and crawls or rolls around the crib.

*If your 9+ month old currently enjoys early morning milk feedings or eats breakfast as soon as they wake up, this is a nice reward for waking up. If she is happy to offer these foods, early mornings are a consequence, unless she goes back to sleep after the feeding. If you don’t think your baby needs these foods for nutrition and just wakes up to them out of habit, you can stop if your baby is older than 9 months and is eating solids throughout the day. This is a personal decision.

* Sometimes mom and dad need to get the baby up early for work hours during the week, but want to encourage the baby to sleep late on weekends. Unfortunately, the baby does not understand the difference between a work day and a weekend, so I recommend that you treat every day as a Sunday and encourage him to sleep until the last minute and organize breakfast for the baby at the place of child care or nursery.

*If you reward your baby for waking up early in the morning with a sleep soon after breakfast, you are encouraging early awakening.

*If you put your baby to bed too early at night, he will hit his sleep quota earlier in the night and won’t be able to sleep until his reasonable waking time in the morning.

* The last and obvious reason is that if you or your partner are early risers, the baby may look like early risers and will always grace you with his presence when you wake up. After all, the baby is genetically related!

Advice: If your baby’s routine is working for your baby and your family, don’t change a thing! If the routine needs fine-tuning, first look for possible contributing factors, then confidently establish a consistent plan and monitor your results to see what works.

(C)Copyright-Natalie Ebrill. All rights reserved throughout the world.