nighttime hunger... wwyd?

[Havilah]

My daughter is 2.5 and nightweaned recently. She was nursing 8-10x a night and I was going crazy for lack of uninterrupted sleep. The process was pretty easy, really, and I felt good about that.

Now she wakes up 2-4x a night. I can handle that, as it's a HUGE improvement. The problem is that she's been waking up and complaining of hunger somewhere between 2 and 4am. She is quite underweight, so I really hesitate not to take her seriously... but it's making me NUTS that she refuses some of the snacks that I offer during the day, and she only nibbles at some of her meals. :banghead I really want to communicate to her that daytime is for eating and nighttime is for sleeping, because if I get up and wait for her to eat a snack I'm WIDE awake and it's hard for me to get back to sleep. :yawn This morning at 4am I gave her a bagel w/ butter to eat in the bed, which of course was a crumbly mess, and I'm a bit paranoid about cavities. She just had 2 cavities filled in spite of the fact that I am SUPER conscientious about oral hygiene. :/

Ideas??

[Havilah]

:grin

Anyone? Perhaps I need a catchier title. :giggle

[Oliveshoots]

DS went through a really rough stage like this for a while when he was 2-3 years old. It just about drove me insane!!! He would wake up and be sOOOOOO cranky and miserable around 2 - 3 am, and i finally figured out it was either hunger or even a drop in his blood sugar.

So I started giving him a protein snack right before bed. He loved and sitll loves peanut butter crackers, or I would give him cheese, sometimes even chicken nuggets or whatever meat/protein we had had for dinner. And a little rice milk for protein, too. The only problem this caused was lots of peeing in the night, and sometimes a diaper/pull-up would leak.

I remember when i was pregnant with ds and told the OB how I woke up so hungry all night long and really weak/shaky in the mornings, and she said it was due to my blood sugar fluctuating too much during the night. She suggested just a spoonful of peanut butter before bed, or something else protein-y. The peanut butter did the trick (I also had a glass of milk.)

so this advice was what I used with ds to get him through this phase.

now I just make sure they have either dinner or a snack about 30-45 min. before bed (gives them time to use the potty before bed, but keeps them full all night.)

Hope you find something that works : ) I remember dd waking up just about as much after she night-weaned, and she gradually woke up less and less (although i thought it would never get better.) :hug

[KatieMae]

When my older two did that, around the same age I believe, I read in the NCSS that a pre-bedtime snack of protein + a little carbohydrate will help them sleep sooner & better. Perhaps give her dinner early enough so she'd be hungry before bed, then get her to eat some cheese or peanut butter on crackers or something similar to that. Do a quick teeth brushing & get her off to bed.

I hope it gets better soon :pray4

[klpmommy]

high protein bedtime snack plus a banana in the middle of the night as needed. E has a super high metabolism apparently & still sometimes wakes up at night hungry. And it is for real hunger, and she doesn't eat a ton at any meal during the day, but she seems to need to eat a little often. I never offered choices at night, it was a banana or nothing. So I kept it fairly boring & I did not ever converse with her in the night so as to not encourage nighttime waking. It tapered out on its own so that it happened less & less often, now E only wakes once every couple of months hungry.

[Havilah]

Those were definitely helpful suggestions. :ty4 We just had a graham cracker/peanut butter snack, so hopefully we'll do a little better tonight. :pray4

I've got bananas at the ready. I like how those can be at the bedside and won't get the sheets too crumby. :cool

[Katiebug]

We went through this when I nightweaned my youngest at nearly 3. I just kept bananas beside the bed...after about 2 weeks he decided it wasn't worth getting up for anymore :giggle

[KatieMae]

I've got bananas at the ready. I like how those can be at the bedside and won't get the sheets too crumby. :cool

Yeah, that's a seriously brilliant idea :rockon

[TuneMyHeart]

We used to give Ellie cereal bars in the middle of the night when she did that. It's hard to get used to kids having to eat food when you're asleep!

[Katiebug]

Just make sure no banana peels get left under pillows :shifty

[MaiMama]

Thanks for asking this. I meant to a while ago.

I'm pregnant, and I'm pretty sure my milk is either gone or very salty. J nurses to sleep and a few times at night, but often asks for water right when coming off the breast. He has recently been hungry in the middle of the night. I added a bedtime snack, but it hasn't been protein-driven, so I need to work on that. I have kept a baggie of cheerios in bed with us, and open it, and sometimes help him get handfulls and hand him his cup until he is done. That's also usually between 2 and 4 am. One night I was out, and used a banana, and that was helpful, too. They're not as cheap, so I don't know that I'll be able to do that all the time, but I can at least rotate. I also insist on whatever we have in the room.

It does sound like I need to work on the protein part of the bedtime snack. Do you eat in your kitchens, or take peanut butter to the room with you? I haven't wanted anything too messy (or spoons, etc) upstairs. Cheerios seem to last forever, so that hasn't bothered me the way I think pbjs would. So how do you handle bedtime snack mess?

[KatieMae]

We always did the snacks downstairs as the last part of the pre-cuddles bedtime routine, if that makes sense :scratch Like, bath, jammies, quiet playtime, then a snack, brushing teeth & then bed/cuddles and the child falls asleep. So it's immediately before the falling asleep happens, but no crumbs in bed :tu

[Havilah]

Just make sure no banana peels get left under pillows :shifty


thanks for the tip :lol


Thanks for asking this. I meant to a while ago.

It does sound like I need to work on the protein part of the bedtime snack. Do you eat in your kitchens, or take peanut butter to the room with you? I haven't wanted anything too messy (or spoons, etc) upstairs. Cheerios seem to last forever, so that hasn't bothered me the way I think pbjs would. So how do you handle bedtime snack mess?


I'm only one night into this, but we dipped our graham sticks directly into the peanut butter. We pretty much did what I do late at night when no one's looking, only we sat at the kitchen table to do it. It was quite the special treat! Victoria kept calling the peanut butter "hunny mustred" because that's the only dip she'd ever had. :giggle

Katie posted at the same time. :hug

[me]

underweight, constant hunger, waking 2am-4am, cavities  :think id do a parasite cleanse  :hiding
eta:and food sensitivities

[Rabbit]

Samantha in particular had to eat a snack right before bed, have a water sippee more than once in the night, and have a middle of the night snack, for about six months after she weaned. Simon, not so much.

[Havilah]

No need to hide, me. :hug

You nailed everything but the constant hunger. This child has very little motivation to eat. She's not picky... she'll eat almost anything if she's in the mood to eat... but that mood doesn't strike nearly as often as I'd like. When she does eat she just nibbles a few bites and she's *done*. It's frustrating and a bit disconcerting.

I'm interested in your input, though.

What does the nightwaking have to do with parasites? Would she be she vaguely uncomfortable?


Samantha in particular had to eat a snack right before bed, have a water sippee more than once in the night, and have a middle of the night snack, for about six months after she weaned. Simon, not so much.


Yeah, nightweaning was magical for my son. He slept fitfully (tossing and turning all night) until his tonsillectomy, but he never woke me. I pinched myself for months. :zz

[Rabbit]

When Simon gets hungry, he can't have a snack and go back to sleep. He's -up-. Five hours before morning, and he'll be up for breakfast, if he didn't get a good snack before bed.

[NovelMama]

We always do a pretty sizable bedtime snack here--usually a bagel with cream cheese--and keep a sippy cup of water at the bedside.

[me]

:O
the hunger at that particular time along with the waking. that fits perfectly with the cycle of some parasites and how our bodies respond to it. if it wasnt that particular time consistently i wouldnt have mentioned it. but that along with the other things you mention is just so telling. sometimes there are the unseen stomach bugs that we all have at any given time (much like skin mites) and they dont always cause the classic things that people are use to hearing about. but i bet if you just random google her symptoms you are going to get tons of links for parasites.
even if you just pass on what i would do in your situation you really dont want to be giving her tons of meat or dairy. especially right before bed :duck i use to do it so i dont say that with any judgement just by personal experience. In the natural relm of things, back before the invent of fridges people just didnt eat meat or dairy right before going to bed. :shrug
id do something like nuts or fruit or a whole grain bread with some kind of nut butter spread on.

but now that we do parasite cleanses, along with a few foods added to our diet as part of our yearly maintenance the kids dont even want bedtime snacks anylonger (i have a 7 month old, a 3, 5 and 7 year old). and my skinny minnie (the 7 yr old) who use to eat just like your dd is still very trim but now she is getting all the nutrients she eats, even if she eats very little. and she had two fillings a while back. now her teeth are 100% and we do all natural tooth care. no need for act mouthwash, flouride pastes, flossing, all the stuff we use to have to do because she just wasnt getting all her nutrients. one other thing that kept her from taking in what she needed for her teeth was the condition of her stomach. we ate well but she just needed a few extra things added to her diet to keep her intestinal lining clear so it could absorb everything that was going through.

an interesting note. fresh oregano or oregano oil added to ones diet not only kills parasites but is one way to keep the teeth clean and free of cavities, abcesses, tooth sensitivity. Tons of things that kill parasites are also part of natural tooth care. im not saying its the parasites causing tooth problems but they are somehow related in the very amazing way everything in our body is tied together and interrelated. why not throw things at a problem that not only fix that one but maybe two or three other things. they just might be related.

im not saying what i would do is the only right way for you guys. just saying thats what i would do, since you asked :)

[JoyGal]

me, what do you do for the parasite cleanse?

I really like the protein snack idea before bed, makes perfect sense.

[me]

me, what do you do for the parasite cleanse?

I really like the protein snack idea before bed, makes perfect sense.

done as needed or routinely but not daily:
food grade diatomaceous earth(tasteless and most thorough)
calcium bentonite clay(doesnt kill all but does most)
added into our foods regularly:
oregano
papaya
fresh garlic/onion (there are ways to hide it for kids)
papaya seeds (i dont like capers and i dont like them as mock capers :sick)
pineapple
coconut, coconut oil, coconut water
ground flax seed
probiotics/yogurt
to name a few
:giggle

[JoyGal]

The foods are much easier than I thought, thank you for listing them :)

[Havilah]

Yes, thank you, me. :iloveyou2