Waking up early at 15 months - hungry or walking-related?

[pikapoo]

DS 15 months used to be an early riser (like 5/5:30) for months. That changed a couple of months ago when a combination of black out blinds and later bedtime seemed to make him wake up closer to 6/7. He's a heavy toddler and has weighed and measured around the top 2 percentile lines since birth.

About 1-2 weeks ago, he started walking properly. Around this time, he also started waking up early (like before 5am) every couple of days, crying and refusing to go back to bed. Unfortunately he also seems to be demanding milk/food when he wakes up! Sometimes he will snooze for a little while after having some milk. But this morning for example, he woke up fully after milk and kept trying to get our attention. We brought him into our bed in the hopes he would snooze (it's happened a couple of times before), but no joy.

Can anyone tell me if this happened with their little ones when they started walking? Is it a phase? Or do I have a comfort feeding toddler and I need to deal with his compulsions? Mealtimes (and in between) can get stressful as well as he is always demanding food and it never appears to be quick enough or enough food for him.

It sounds hunger related. Could you try increasing daytime calories? Maybe add in supper before bed for a while?

Could be thirst rather than hunger, if he doesn't drink as much water in the daytime as he could.

He eats loads for dinner around 6-6:30pm. Milk is 5 Oz X 3 bottles (cow's milk), including a bottle maybe 1/2 hour before bed (just before/after bath).

I recognise I might be stressing unnecessarily about him overeating and the effects on his tummy .. but he seems to pack away adult sized portions much too quickly (shove food in mouth, quick chew, and swallow). Perhaps I will let him eat what he wants for a week, and see if that helps at all.

My 18 month old dd can pack Away adult sized portions a lot to.
She's tracking the 91st centile for weight still.
At this age I do think they only eat to satisfy them selves and no more.
There will be a limit how much he can physically eat

Assuming the food you give is healthy, I don't think you should be restricting the amount eaten at all, unless on medical advice.

Being full should be self regulating, if baby is eating large portions of healthy meals, let him keep eating until he doesn't want any more. The time to restrict food is if you are giving high salt, high sugar or processed foods.

Do you have issues around food yourself?

I would make dinner earlier, 4 or 5pm ish. Then add in supper at 7pm ish followed by milk then bed.

I agree with fate.

My dd routine is

8-8:30am- large bowl porridge / or slice of toast with peanut butter/cream cheese .
Fruit slices

10am ish- yoghurt or cheese or similar

1-1:30 lunch
She doesn't eat much lunch ever actually.
Offer sandwich or tuna pasta, she'll eat maybe a 1/4 sandwich , a banana, maybe a handful wotsits etc, some tomatoes and sweet corn. So just snacks stuff.

Dinner 4-5.
Lasagne , spag Bol, pasta with veg etc

6-6:30pm. Offer toast, she eats half a slice ish.

She drinks lots of fluid in the day but won't have any milk despite offering anymore

Thanks all. We give him healthy stuff, it's just he can get through it so quickly and through so much of it. He ends up with a huge belly and we just worry he is full without realising it and so keeps eating.

As an example - we had a picnic yesterday. He ate 1.25 hummus and veggie sandwiches (2 slices of bread each) in 5 minutes, followed by 1 banana and almond muffin, 5 slices of melon, drank water in between, then sat there asking for more. If he sees us eating anything during the day, even if he's just eaten something himself, he gets excited and demands it for himself. By the sounds of it, maybe we just need to accept he is the way he is, and let him eat as much as he wants.

At this age, the sign he is full is when he stops eating. I would keep offering until that point is reached.

I have big, big eaters. I use drinks to fill them up too. I offer squash, I am aware this isn't as healthy as water. But I can get mine to drink 3-5 litres of water per day as squash, whereas it would be less than half that as plain water.

The meal you describe for example, I'd take the loads of melon eaten as a sign of both hunger and thirst. Next time I'd have insisted on a full beaker being drunk after the muffin, if more was wanted. If still hungry after a big (500ml) drink, I'd have offered as much fruit/veg as wanted. If too much sweet food is eaten, I'd take that as an indication that more savoury is needed. So more sandwiches, or add in potato salad, carrot sticks, salad.

Thanks FATE. DS is pretty indiscriminate about what he eats, so he will eat pretty much anything put in front of him (in that sense we are lucky he has a healthy varied diet). This does mean that it's hard to view his eating preferences as an indicator.

This evening for dinner he had 3.5 X big fistful portions of blended steamed vegetables with red lentil pasta. I also gave him an extra bottle of milk and made him drink up most of a beaker of water. At every turn, he still asked for "more! More!". Same thing often happens at bedtime with milk. If he had his way, I'm pretty sure he'd guzzle through at least 15oz at bedtime alone. I know it makes me sound a bit potty but his penchant for wanting "more" genuinely seems like it's coming from a psychological place rather than a physiological one. My MIL, who is as different from me as you can get, also feels the same way after observing him over a number days.

I like your idea of trying to get more water in using whatever means necessary - maybe that will make him realise more quickly that he isn't actually hungry.