Why does my little one wake within an hour of going to bed?

Written by Claire Burgess, Family Consultant

Do you find that you put your little one to bed at night and they go off to sleep, but then wake up anywhere between 20 to 60 mins after they have gone to bed and need resettling? This is often to referred to as a ‘false start bedtime’ and it often means that you have to go back to your little one to resettle them, or in some cases repeat the bedtime routine so that they go back off to sleep. For some once your little one is settled after this then they tend to sleep for a longer period, or it can be for the remainder of the night. 

What might be causing this to happen?

There can be various different reasons:

• Overtiredness - Naps in the day might be too short or the timings are not quite right and so impacting on the night time sleep. Overtiredness can cause your little one to struggle to settle into a deeper sleep at bedtime, which in turn can cause the wake up. This can also be caused if your child is waking early in the morning (pre-6am) or going to bed too late.  It is all related to overtiredness.

• Sleep environment 

  • Is the room too light? This can sometimes trick the body into thinking that it is just a nap that is needed rather than a full night’s sleep. 

  •  If you are using white noise does this switch off after 30-45 mins? If so, this could be the issue.  Check out our white noise blog for more on this here.  

  • Is there something which is disturbing them, noises which might be causing them to wake?

• Bedtime is too early for your child and their release of sleep hormone has not happened or is not high enough for them to fall asleep into a deep restful sleep at this time.

• Sleep associations - This is what your little one needs in order to fall asleep at bedtime, and when they stir this is what they look for in order to fall back to sleep.  We have a blog all about sleep associations here.

• Bedtime routine – Do you have a predictable bedtime routine? If your bedtime routine changes, your little one is not able to predict that bedtime is coming which can then stop them releasing Melatonin - the sleep hormone that is needed to help us get a good night’s sleep. 

• Hunger – Is your little one waking up hungry? This could be due to not having a filling enough milk feed at bedtime or for older children it could be that they ate dinner too early which is causing them to get hungry around bedtime.

• Pain – This can be linked to hunger as if your little one has had a milk feed they can sometimes have pain if they have trapped wind or they are struggling to digest.

How can you stop it happening?

• Work on naps - if you think that naps might be causing the issues, then it is important to work on these.  Depending on your situation it might be that you are looking to have more of a nap schedule so that you know when these are going to happen every day.  Make sure that you keep nap timings appropriate for the age of your little one and work within their wake windows.  Our early riser blog here gives lots of information about naps and wake windows if you would like to find out more about them. 

• Look at your child’s sleep associations – if your little one has sleep associations which you think might be affecting their sleep it is important to work on this – again, have a look at our blog all about sleep associations here.  The way in which our little ones fall asleep can not only hugely impact how they settle to sleep but can also affect how they sleep for the remainder of the night.  This can therefore be one of the main causes of a ‘false start bedtime’.

• Move bed time – As mentioned above it might be that bedtime is a just little too early (or for some a little too late especially when naps are tricky).  Just moving bedtime by 15 mins (earlier or later) can make the difference and stop this waking. 

• Have a good predictable bedtime routine - If this is the same each night (dinner, calm activities, no screens for at least an hour, bath, feed (depending on age), stories, verse of a song and then into bed with night time phrase, the bedtime routine prepares our little ones for sleep.  If this pattern (or similar) is followed each night you will find that your little one is able to predict sleep is coming, they wind down and most importantly release that all important sleep hormone, Melatonin.

• A nice dark sleep environment helps to trigger the sleep hormone too, in the summer months it can mean that our little ones are going to sleep when it is still light outside so having a good blackout blind will also help avoid early morning wakings.  Another aspect to consider is lights in the room - even if this is a night-light, it needs to be red or amber rather than blue, yellow or white as these can hinder sleep.  Blue, yellow or white lights trick the brain into thinking it is day rather than night. 

• To combat waking due to hunger it is important to give time for your little one to have a good milk feed at bedtime so try not to rush this. It might be that they need to have a break mid-way where they are winded, have a little rest to digest and then go back to having more of a feed after 5-10 mins. Giving time for the feed can really help your little one to have a filling feed. If you have an older child and you think hunger might be causing the false start then look at if your child needs to have their dinner time adjusted so it is a little later or consider giving them a supper prior to the bedtime routine (this can be the case for children who have tea at nursery around 4pm - they often need to have something when they get home to see them through) so that they have a nice full tummy for bed.

• For babies, a good winding routine and keeping them upright for 15-20 mins after their feed can help with digestion and pain.

For some children the reason they wake so soon after going to sleep might be a combination of several of these factors and that is ok.  It's about making the changes and giving them at least 5- 7 days consistently before considering if the change (or changes) isn’t working.  Changing habits can take time and it is important that you allow for this. 

For more information about sleep you might be interested in ‘Your Guide to Sleep’ - our step-by-step video guide, our other sleep blogs, or you might feel that you would like further support from a 1:1 sleep consultation - more information on our parenting consultations is here.

We also have a podcast - ‘Newborn to Teen and Everything in Between’ - listen here.

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