4 year old sleep

[matresense]

My son has never been the best sleeper and I imagine that the start of reception is responsible for being less settled, but he wakes up between 2-4am every night and takes an hour to settle. I am wondering whether he is going to bed too early - he goes down around 7 and I have to wake him at 6.30 at the moment.

how much sleep do your 4 yo children get?

My child eats meat, chicken, fish, walnuts, fruit, vegetables, baked beans, rice and pasta. He does not eat eggs, any other type of nut or peanut butter. There is no guarantee that he will eat a substitute. There is no guarantee that I will be able to replace the fat, protein or calories that he is currently getting through dairy. This is a perfectly sensible concern.

He sounds like he has a good diet even if cut dairy tbf. My daughter had CMPI and when we first did the first few milk ladder attempts she would often have split nights 2-4am so I can get the reasoning of previous posters. Maybe with school meals he is getting more dairy and overloading him, is he having school milk? Could you try switching to fortified oat milk just before bed instead of whole milk but keep everything else the same? If you think worth trying to reduce milk burden especially in the evening to experiment then 2-4 weeks to assess I don't think needs medical involvement, and yes I'm a HCP. If that works then can look at upping protein content elsewhere +/- adding vitamin supplements as I agree oat milk is not as good as whole milk nutrition wise. Can always ignore if you find later bedtimes work of course!

I have oil radiators set to keep rooms at 19 in both kid's rooms so I know temperature is never a reason for them waking, maybe something to consider? So it will be teeth (won't be relevant for you now ofc), illness, gastric upset, and now some night terrors also coming into play with my oldest who has just started school too.

I like to remove variables that could contribute so then easier to tweak what's left (and hope it doesn't end with me insane second guessing!)

I totally get you and I’m slightly different to your regular person who is DF as I don’t actually like milk and milk products so I don’t eat many of the substitutes.

One thing I did have as a child and I found hurt my tummy so much less was sterilised milk. I’m not sure they even sell it now but I think the longer heating process helped to break down the proteins.

So one thing you could do is to keep the dairy and try a milk like UPF or sterilised and giving him dairy that is easier to digest like hard cheese or baked dairy? The only dairy I ever eat, and it is rare, I’d a proper carbonara make with eggs and pecorino.

Ah just seen that he doesn’t eat eggs so the carbonara will be out.

Does he eat oily fish? That can be a good way of replacing the fat and protein from dairy. I think boys can have oily fish 3 times a week?

@Ihatewindingthank you. Yes, maybe I could try cutting down dairy load in the evenings only to see if it results in better quality sleep

@BunnyRuddingtonthank you. Yes, my son eats salmon - currently more like once a week, but I could up that. He will eat egg in things, but not alone, so I could try a carbonara.