could what DD eats for tea and what time she eats it have an impact on her waking at night?

[mckenzie]

I started a thread the other day about 10 month old DD suddenly waking at night.

I've been keeping a mental diary the last few days and it seems to be that if she has an early tea (about 4.45pm) of just a sandwich and maybe a small piece of fruit (so all over by 5.15ish) then she seems to sleep through okay whereas if she has a later tea at about 5.15 of something more substantial like pasta and veggies and so doesn't finish until about 5.45pm then she wakes up. Her bathtime and milk routine is always the same although maybe if she has a later tea it might run about 15 mins later or so but nothing major.

Could this possibly be having some impact do you think or is it just a huge coincidence?

We certainly noticed some patterns with ours - if they had cerain food at tea-time then they tended to have restless nights. With DD it was bananas and with DS it was cauliflower -we just gave them those foods earlier in the day instead.

Try giving her the more substantial meals for lunch instead of tea if you think it helps her sleeping.

Although of course you might just find it was coincidence or a phase??

I thinking feeding them substantially late on just fuels them to keep going. Their digestion kicks in and they're firing on all cylinders.

I do alwasy try to do the bigger main meal at lunchtime but sometimes, if she's too tired and really needs a nap then it wont get eaten anyway and so I do more of a snacky lunch and give the bigger meal at tea time. I'm definitely doing the bigger lunch today though and a sandwich for tea. i had the worse night last night ever (in terms of lack of sleep), with either of my children and i certainly dont want to go through that again!

My DS is older (22m) so not as relevant, but he is always too tired for his lunch at 12. Instead he has a rice cake / dried fruit snack at 11ish, sleeps 12-2ish, and then has his lunch when he wakes up.

that's what I did today Laura. worked much better.