Does giving a baby an earlier bedtime help them sleep later?

Usually yes. It has to do with how many sleep cycles our bodies can fit into a night. Our bodies start to prepare us for the day around 5am REGARDLESS of when we fell asleep. We get a rush of adrenaline and our bodies start to wake up. In a way, it's like a body defense mechanism. When you don't sleep much at night, our bodies defend us by waking us up anyways to eat, play, hunt a boar, etc. If too many sleep cycles end around that time, then your baby will wake earlier instead of later. Baby Sleep cycles are between 30-45 minutes and babies typically take 3 sleep cycles past 5am. Let's see an example:

Your baby goes to bed at 8pm. Let's assume that your baby is going to sleep at 8pm now. The 45 minute sleep cycles connect at:

• 8:45PM
• 9:30PM
• 10:15PM
• 11:00PM
• 11:45PM
• 12:30AM
• 1:15AM
• 2:00AM
• 2:45AM
• 3:30AM
• 4:15AM
• 5:00AM <--1 cycle past 5am
• 5:45AM <-- 2 cycles past 5am
• 6:30AM <-- 3 cycles past 5am

Your baby goes to sleep at 7pm. Let's assume that your baby is going to sleep at 8pm now. The 45 minute sleep cycles connect at:

• 7:45PM
• 8:30PM
• 9:15PM
• 10:00PM
• 10:45PM
• 11:30PM
• 12:15AM
• 1:00AM
• 1:45AM
• 2:30AM
• 3:15AM
• 4:00AM
• 4:45AM
• 5:30AM <--1 cycle past 5 am
• 6:15AM <-- 2 cycles past 5am
• 7:00AM <-- 3 cycles past 5am

Now, if your baby is already going to bed fairly early, there is a limit to an earlier bedtime helping you. Or, if your baby can't connect their sleep cycles yet, bedtime changes are not going to fix it. There are a number of other reasons why early morning wakings can happen that we cover in this video lesson in our app.