Would you give your nearly 3yo food at 4.30am if he said he was hungry and breastmilk didn't seem to be cutting it for him?

[mawbroon]

DS and I co sleep from when he wakes at night (random times) usually until the morning. He normally breastfeeds for a couple of minutes and then turns over and drops back off to sleep. This suits us both for now, so no probs there.

However, last night he woke at 12.30am and fed on and off until finally at 4.30am he started wailing that he was hungry.

The logical thing to me at the time seemed to be to give him something to eat, but in my 4.30am foggy brained state, decided that no, he would think it was a big laugh and would then ask for food every morning at 4.30am for ever more. So, he then fed on and off, until I could stand it no more at 5.45am when I sent him downstairs with DH to eat breakfast. He had some ready brek, then the two of them came back to bed for another couple of hours.

What would you do?

Going out soon, so will check back later.

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to be honest i have made bread and butter and given it to my son at night before now as i knoew he hadnt eaten too well at dinner nothing worse than being hungry and not being able to sleep

also i was told to give a slice of toast before bed and it did seem to help with the hunger thing in the night

I may be really harsh but ds of 2 years gets ignored from the time he goes to his bed until he gets up sometime after 7am. If he wakes before this he is left to settle himself back down. Would not feed him but I know he should not be hungry and he knows that it is unacceptable to get up in the middle of the night.

However as you have a very different approach I could not comment on the best thing to do in you situation. TBH you know you child best and much of it is down to instinct

No way I'm doing artificial sweetners. Asparatame is a friggin' neurotoxin.

Mine are usually okay with water, but I also do fruit teas and water those down.

Mawbroon - that all sounds like hard work. Is your DS not grumpy in the day with not sleeping well at night?

If he were my child (and I have a 3yr old ds), I would do what many others have said - just offer water. Night time is for sleeping, and IMO a bad night's sleep is more detrimental for a child than feeling a bit hungry. None of mine have needed any food or milk in the night since they were babies. Night times have been strictly regarded as for sleeping. Not eating, drinking, chatting or reading, just sleep. If they have owken in the night, they have been enoruaged back to sleep, but anything else has been refused. That way there is no 'reward' for being awake.

I know a bf, co-sleeping lifestyle is different and so this will be a hard nut to crack as it will go against how you have chosen to parent your child, but I definitely see more children suffering from poor quality sleep than not getting a bowl of cereal at 4am.

Best of luck

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I think that being disturbed and keep waking and being upset from 12:30 - 5:45am makes for more of a bad nights sleep for a child (and parent) than a bowl of cereal that takes 15 - 20mins and then back to sleep for everyone.

How can you know a child shouldn't be hungry?

I personally don't eat the same meals, weighed out each day to consume the same amount of food.

Some days I even like to have an unscheduled snack!

If it was a behaviour problem - a child waking in the night and using food as an excuse to get up and run wild I wouldn't put up with it and would work on changing it. But as a one off or an occassional thing I really can't see the problem with letting them eat at an odd time. Surely better than making them stay hungry all night and then over compensate by eating more in one go when they're eventually allowed to eat!

(I said before I sometimes get up for things. I actually sleep REALLY well when I don't have a newborn - no sleeping problems here. But still there are times I wake up to go to the loo, or have a drink, and very occassionally might even wake up hungry and get a snack. And other times I might wake for no reason and read for a little while before I go back to sleep. I still manage to get enough sleep and function just fine by listening to what my body tells me I need to do instead of looking at the clock!)

How can you know a child shouldn't be hungry?

I personally don't eat the same meals, weighed out each day to consume the same amount of food.

Some days I even like to have an unscheduled snack!

If it was a behaviour problem - a child waking in the night and using food as an excuse to get up and run wild I wouldn't put up with it and would work on changing it. But as a one off or an occassional thing I really can't see the problem with letting them eat at an odd time. Surely better than making them stay hungry all night and then over compensate by eating more in one go when they're eventually allowed to eat!

(I said before I sometimes get up for things. I actually sleep REALLY well when I don't have a newborn - no sleeping problems here. But still there are times I wake up to go to the loo, or have a drink, and very occassionally might even wake up hungry and get a snack. And other times I might wake for no reason and read for a little while before I go back to sleep. I still manage to get enough sleep and function just fine by listening to what my body tells me I need to do instead of looking at the clock!)

No I wouldn't! I would get him used to the idea that you don't eat at night. I am very mean but I made it totally boring at that age and gave water only. They then get used to getting themselves back off to sleep.

in all honesty i have done this on more than one occasion and he doesnt do it every night and hasnt done it since last growth spurt from time they go to bed to 4 something in morning is a full night sleep its 9-10 hrs i give buttered bread and milk and he goes back off till 7

i have also done it at midnight made sarnie and left it by his bed if it means he settles and i get to sleep so be it

and he hasnt done it for months toast before bed seems to do the trick now

I think that at three years old its would be high time that your child should be learning to sleep on his own and thru the night!!

I personally think that bf at 3yo is wrong as it is mediacally proven that they dont need it by then and to let a child at that age help himself to you is just asking for trouble from them.

My two dd go to bed at 6:30 and sleep through till 7 in the morning, they get a cup of water if they wake in the night and are tucked back into their own beds (one is nearly 3 and the other 16 months)

Im sure your health visitor would also say that bf at this age throughout the night is not a good idea due to tooth decay etc.

Maybe (and no offense intended) you should have a think about whay you are sleeping with your child and not your husband, maybe time to let your little one grow up a bit??

The waking for a feed in the night would have worn me down.

At 3 he should be (mostly if not alawys) sleeping through the night. I would have thought that it would be a good idea to be working =on this.

What he is being fed isn't the issue. Most children (unless there is a particular medical/SN resason) shouldn't be waking to eat at age 3

I don't wake in order to eat, but sometimes I wake in the night and happen to be hungry. If it is stopping me getting back to sleep then I get up and eat something. It doesn't happen very often. I am applying the same principle to Mawbroon's question. Maybe if the waking up hungry and needing to eat was a regular thing then I would see it as a problem (in terms of dental health, disturbance, etc..) - but it is quite possible that it only happens every now and then - in which case it is just one of those things you deal with. As for the night bf - I think the OP said that in itself isn't a problem for her.

I wouldn't do it regularly and I would offer dd something very unappealing - ricecake/oatcake etc. But a while ago I decided that dd (2.3) shouldn't have milk at night, if she was exceptionally hungry, she should have food.

It isn't that you wake to eat (maybe some kids would but I trust that my dd hasn't/wouldn't) , it's that if you have been awake for any length of time (espesh at 4 or 5am I think) then you get hungry - and that stops you sleeping (and makes us v irritable but that's another story).

I am glad that other people wouldn't give themselves broken nights for something the DC doesn't need!
I think first of all it is setting up bad dietry habits-no one needs a snack in the night.
He is old enough to be told that everyone sleeps at night including mummy.
Once teeth are cleaned it is water only.
At that age mine had their own bed, a trainer beaker of water beside it (so they didn't spill when sleepy)and strict instructions not to get up before morning!

Hi mb.

I've given ds1 milk or water if he wakes at that sort of time but never food. He wouldn't settle one night at bed time for ages claiming he was hungry. At first i wouldn't give him anything cos i was so worried the "oh he'll be wanting to do it everynight" aspect i ignored that he might genuinely be hungry. Eventually i gave him some toast, he settled and slept through. Next day i made sure he'd eaten loads, he did ask for toast but I just said no not tonight and that was it, so he obviously had just been a bit hungry the previous night.

PS. I think ds1 is having/just had a growth spurt too.

It's funny how posters on this topic are imbuing their opinions with moral outrage

ie he should NOT be waking for breastmilk in the night

you can tell their arms are clasped to their bosoms about doing something as heinous as WAKING in the night - FOR MILK

rather than seeing this as a normal developmental stage, which, like any other, will be reached sooner by some children than others

eg by age 6 or 7 most children have learnt to swim quite well
some people would say they SHOULD be swimming
I am not sure if many people would be up in arms if it was found some children were evilly NOT SWIMMING YET

I think we would mostly relax and say they will get it in their own time

oh in answer to the OP

I don't know what I would have done
I suspect Tatties is right
I, like other posters, might have been concerned that it would become a habit, though

I would go with your instinct as to whether he was trying it on, or not
I don't think there is anything intrinsically wrong with giving a hungry body food, no matter what time of day or night it is
and yes if your metabolism is high and you lead an active life you can experience hunger at night - even as an adult
children's bodies are not the same as adults and it is possible for some children to need feeding in the night for longer than you might expect

I agree Umlellala - I wouldn't want to make a habit of it either, but it can happen occasionally and I don't see anything wrong with giving something light and unexciting to tide them over. I am not sure if people are misunderstanding the OP (or maybe I am reading it wrong!) but Mawbroon's ds has only asked for food at night once so far, it is not a habit; and quoting the OP, the bf at night arrangement "suits us both for now, so no probs there." I don't think the bf at night has anything to do with the waking up hungry.

For me and our life the answer to the OP is
NO WAY JOSE!!.......

Night time is for sleep- the only exception for me would be a drink of water- and that would be at a push tbh.

It is far more important to us that dd gets a full 12 hours sleep, as I think that is the most beneficial thing for her development as well as the fact that I am lazy cow and refuse to do nighttime feeds (bf till dd was 17 weeks old and stopped feeding her in the night after that and she sleeps from 7pm to 7am.

The co sleeping would be a no no for me too, as would be the bf him to sleep- but thats a whole other can of worms and dont really want to go there to be honest.

I think if you have chosen your particular way of parenting and this includes co sleeping and feeding in the night, then really you are getting what you signed up for. He has got into a habit of waking and needs the breast to go back to sleep.
If you want to continue with the extended bf, why dont you knock the night time feeds on the head all together and break him from this habit of waking for the breast.

But lilymolly, by not feeding him mawbroon's ds didn't settle at all for over 5 hours (12:30am -5:45am). So it's not as though not feeding him/ignoring him makes him sleep, is it?

I don't think it is moral outrage!
No wonder we have so many obese children if they constantly need feeding! I am against snacks anyway, but there is no way I would do them at night. It doesn't matter how hungry I am, I wait until breakfast!
When my DS was 3 I also had a 16month old DS, I would have had very disturbed nights if there only way of getting back to sleep was a breast feed! I think it is important to show DCs a way of getting themselves back to sleep if they wake in the night. I generally wake at least once in the night, I turn over and go back to sleep, it is perfectly possible for a 3 year old to do the same.
It is never too young to try and get them to show empathy for other people and they can quite easily be told why parents need their sleep and how they feel if they don't get it.

So would you sit up night after night for 5hours with a child that was very determined? Possibly waking up other children if you had them?

Or would you spend half an hour giving them something to eat and then everyone can go back to sleep, knowing that it was a phase.

As I've said, I've done it and I don't have obese kids. It was a phase and it passed and we all got some sleep.