Baby Waking at 5am: What Helps at 6 to 12 Months

By 5am your baby has already slept most of the night. The drive to sleep that built up through the day is nearly used up, and what is left is light, fragile sleep. A baby who slept through the hoover at 8pm can be woken at 5am by a passing car, a cold foot, or the habit of being picked up at that time.

Between 6 and 12 months, a 5am start usually comes from some mix of these:

• The first nap. A nap soon after waking, around 6.30 or 7am, can work as an extension of the night and teach the body that the night ends at 5am.
• Bedtime. Too early and the night is complete by 5am. Too late and an overtired baby sleeps lightly in the early hours, so both end with a 5am start.
• The 5am feed. Some babies still need a feed in the early hours. For others the feed has become the start of the day.
• The room. The coldest hour of the night is the hour before dawn, and in summer the light arrives before 5am.
• New skills. Rolling, sitting, crawling and pulling to stand all get practised in the light sleep of the early morning, often between 8 and 10 months.

Most families find two or three of these at work at once. This guide is for babies of roughly 6 to 12 months. For toddlers the causes shift, and the guide to a toddler waking at 5am covers 2 to 4 years. For the science of the body clock at any age, see why babies wake so early.

Before changing anything, be clear on the target. Most babies between 6 and 12 months sleep around 11 hours at night, plus two or three naps that add up to two to three and a half hours. Many are natural early risers, and a baby who wakes at 6am after a full night, cheerful and ready to play, is within normal range.

Waking before 6am is worth working on, and so is waking at any time miserable and clearly still tired. A useful test is the first wake window. If your baby is rubbing their eyes and fussing within an hour of a 5am wake, the night ended before they were ready. If they are happy for two hours or more, the night may have been long enough, and the fix is in the timing of the day.

Keep a log for a week before you change anything: bedtime, the time they fell asleep, any night wakes and feeds, the morning wake, each nap, and their mood in the first hour. A week of notes will tell you more than any single bad morning.

This one is easy to miss, and it is one of the most common causes at this age. When a baby wakes at 5am and is back asleep by 6.30 or 7am, that nap is less a daytime nap than the last part of the night, split off. The body learns that the night ends at 5am and resumes an hour or so later. Every morning the pattern repeats and gets stronger.

The fix is to move the first nap later, gradually. Push it 10 to 15 minutes later every two or three days until it falls at a normal time for your baby's age. As a rough guide, a 7 to 9-month-old manages two and a half to three and a half hours awake before a nap, and a 10 to 12-month-old three to four hours. The guides to wake windows at 7 to 9 months and 10 to 14 months have sample days. Use songs, a walk outside and a change of room to get through the last stretch before the nap.

Watch the total day sleep too. A baby who naps for four hours in the day can take it from the night, and the night then ends early. Around 7 to 9 months many babies drop from three naps to two, and somewhere between 13 and 18 months from two to one. Each transition can bring a few weeks of early mornings. The guides to dropping the third nap and the 2 to 1 nap transition cover the signs of each.

Two opposite bedtime mistakes produce the same 5am wake, and the fix for one makes the other worse. The morning mood is the best clue to which one you have.

Too early. A baby who falls asleep at 6pm and needs 11 hours has finished the night at 5am, and these babies wake happy. If that sounds like yours, move bedtime later by 15 minutes every three or four nights, along with the last nap, and watch whether the mornings move with it.

Too late. An overtired baby falls asleep fast, then sleeps restlessly and breaks out of the early morning sleep crying and grumpy. These babies are rubbing their eyes by mid-morning. Moving bedtime later makes this worse. Bring bedtime 15 to 30 minutes earlier instead. It feels backwards, but an earlier bedtime often holds or improves the morning, because the baby is no longer running on stress hormones.

How your baby falls asleep at bedtime matters at 5am too. A baby who is fed or rocked fully to sleep at 7pm has to find that same help again at 5am, when the drive to sleep is weakest. Building some self-settling at bedtime often helps early mornings more than anything done at 5am.

Plenty of babies between 6 and 9 months still need a feed in the early hours, and some still do at 12 months, especially breastfed babies and those who take less in the day. That is normal, and it is not something to stop overnight. If you are unsure whether your baby needs a night feed, ask your health visitor.

The question is what the feed does. If your baby feeds at 5am and goes back to sleep until 6.30 or 7am, that feed is working, and you can leave it alone. If the feed is the end of the night, with your baby wide awake straight after, it may have become a cue for the day to start.

Signs the feed is more habit than hunger: it happens at the same minute every day, your baby feeds for a few minutes then plays, and they are not interested in the next daytime feed. If that fits, try one change at a time:

• Keep the feed and change what follows it. Feed in dim light, no talking, straight back into the cot awake.
• Make the feed a little shorter, or for bottles a little smaller, every two or three nights, and offer more milk in the day.
• Move the feed later in steps of 10 to 15 minutes, so 5am becomes 5.15, then 5.30.

Extra solids at teatime are unlikely to fix a 5am wake. NHS guidance is that solids start at around 6 months alongside breast milk or formula, and milk stays the main drink until 12 months.

In light early morning sleep, the room can end the night on its own. Check three things, and keep each fix within safe sleep guidance.

Light. From late spring to late summer, UK dawn arrives well before 5am. Aim for a room dark enough that you cannot see your hand in front of your face at 5am. Blackout blinds that stick to the glass close the gaps at the edges. Keep every blind and curtain cord short or tied up on a cleat, well out of reach of the cot, because looped cords are a strangulation risk. For night feeds, use a dim red or amber light, which disturbs sleep far less than white light.

Cold. The temperature in a room falls to its lowest in the hour before dawn, and the heating timer may not come on until later. The Lullaby Trust advises a room temperature of 16 to 20°C. In that range a 2.5 TOG sleeping bag over a long-sleeved bodysuit suits most babies. Choose a bag that fits well around the shoulders. Do not add loose blankets, a hat or a hot water bottle in the cot, and keep the cot away from radiators. To check your baby's temperature, feel their chest or the back of their neck. Cold hands and feet are normal. The TOG guide has the full chart.

Noise. Bin lorries, birds, the boiler firing up and a partner's alarm all arrive around 5am. Continuous white noise masks one-off sounds. Keep the machine at least 2 metres from the cot and the volume at or below about 50 decibels at your baby's ear, roughly a quiet conversation. Run it all night, because a machine that switches off at 3am creates its own wake-up. The guide to white noise safety explains how to check the volume.

One more thing about the cot. It is tempting to leave a few toys in there so your baby will play quietly at 5am. For babies under 12 months, the Lullaby Trust and the NHS advise a clear cot: no toys, pillows, bumpers or loose bedding.

Between 6 and 12 months babies learn to sit, crawl, pull to stand and cruise, often in quick succession. A new skill gets practised whenever the brain is near the surface, and at 5am it is. Many parents walk in to find their baby standing at the bars, unable to get back down, and furious about it.

The answer is practice in the day. Spend time on the floor helping your baby lower themselves from standing to sitting, again and again, until they can do it without thinking. Once they can get down on their own, the 5am standing usually fades within a week or two. At night, lie them back down once or twice without fuss, then give them a few minutes to work it out.

Around 8 to 10 months, many babies also start to protest when you leave the room. A baby who wakes at 5am, realises you are gone and calls for you is showing a normal stage of development. Short, calm, predictable returns help more than long cuddles that end with you creeping out. The guides to the 8 month sleep regression and separation anxiety go into more detail.

Decide your plan before bed, because nobody thinks clearly at 4.55am. Pick a morning time, usually 6 or 6.30am, and treat anything before it as night.

• Keep it dark and dull. Lights off or a dim red light, a quiet voice, no play and no screens. Change a nappy only if it needs it.
• Respond the way you respond at midnight. If you feed at night, feed and put your baby back down. If you settle with a hand on the tummy or a few shushes, do that. Use the same method every time so your baby learns what 5am means.
• Give it time. Some babies lie awake chatting for 20 minutes and then drift off. If they are content, leave them to it.
• Start the day clearly. At your chosen time, go in, open the curtains, say good morning in your normal voice and get your baby up. Light, breakfast and daylight soon after your start time help reset the body clock.

A word on tiredness. At 5am, after weeks of early starts, it is easy to fall asleep with your baby on the sofa or in an armchair. This is the most dangerous place to fall asleep with a baby, and the NHS warns it can raise the risk of sudden infant death substantially. If you think you might fall asleep, put your baby back in their cot or move to a bed made safe for them, following the Lullaby Trust's bed-sharing advice in the co-sleeping safety guide. Lay your baby on their back for every sleep. Once they roll both ways on their own, you can leave them in the position they choose, but still put them down on their back.

Change one thing at a time and give it a full week before you judge it. With a consistent plan, most families see the wake time move later within two to three weeks, usually in steps of 10 to 15 minutes. Illness, teething and the clock change will throw in bad mornings along the way. When they pass, go back to the same plan.

Talk to your GP or health visitor if:

• Your baby snores most nights, breathes noisily, or seems to pause in their breathing while asleep.
• They seem to be in pain, arch and cry after feeds, or have itchy eczema that wakes them.
• They are feeding much less than usual, have fewer wet nappies, or are not gaining weight.
• The early waking started with other changes, such as losing a skill they had.
• You are finding it hard to cope after months of 5am starts. That wears anyone down, and low mood after having a baby is common and treatable. Your GP or health visitor can help.

If you are worried your baby is ill, call NHS 111. If they stop breathing or will not wake up, call 999.

For most families none of this applies, and a 5am wake at this age is a fixable mix of nap timing, bedtime and habit. Start with the first nap, keep the room dark and warm enough, and hold your morning time for a week.