Huge nearly 14 mo - hungry at night?

[Schwanengesang]

DS is 14.5 months and is 97cm long and 12.5kg: i.e. he is the height of a 26 month old on the 99.6th centile, way off the charts for a 14.5 month old; and the weight of a 14.5 month old on about the 95th centile.

He has always been a spectacularly bad sleeper (CMPA, reflux, both now apparently totally under control) so he has probably never really learned to sleep well. We are on round 5 of sleep training where I put him to bed, then DH goes in for all wake-ups until about 5am.

A typical day/night goes

7am full breastfeed
7.30am breakfast (porridge, cooked apple, yoghurt*, probiotics)
10.30am short breastfeed
12pm lunch (lentil/chickpea/bean/barley/veg soup; peanut butter toast; capsicum/carrot/cucumber sticks; pureed fruit & baby rice & yoghurt)
12.30 short breastfeed, sleep til 3pm
4.30pm short breastfeed
6pm dinner (blended chicken/veggie stirfry with rice; pureed fruit & baby rice); bath; teeth; story; breastfeed; asleep by 7

8pm wakes screaming, back to sleep with pats from DH
9pm wakes screaming, often not back to sleep until 11.30-12 ish, pats & water & chats from DH
wakes every 45 min until about 2am (poor DH doing pats & water)
wakes every 10-20 minutes from 2am ish with pats & water from DH until I capitulate & feed him (4am ish)
sleeps soundly until 7am

the last bit of being unable to sleep for more than a few minutes, then sleeping soundly for longer than he does any other time, suggests he is hungry. But he's eating SO much already.

Any ideas? DH is insanely tired. If I go in then DS wants to feed literally all night. Any movement away from the boob at all results in hysterical screaming for as long as i can take it (up to 2 hours before I give in). That's no good for anyone.

*yes, I know, former CMPA and yoghurt. All advice from the paediatric allergists is that he should be having dairy in normal quantities and that there is absolutely no sign that he still has the form of CMPA that he had from 1-7 months. I have talked through the sleep with them many times, I have completely cut out dairy for months at a time, I did an exclusion diet for dairy, soy, wheat, oats, etc etc etc from 3 to 7 months and it seemed to make basically no difference - we got one week in that whole time without the bloody diarrhoea. Then it cleared up. Reflux was the same, a bit later - I did exclusion diets for both me and DS - it cleared up apparently of its own accord at about 11 months.

sorry nearly 15 mo. 14.5 mo at the moment

Looking at the height chart again makes me wonder about pituitary adenomas...

How much food does he have? Why are you still blending?

You purée food? And give baby rice? Is the age wrong in the OP?

i wonder if he screams as loud as my 16 month old grandson when we tried (unsuccessfully) to sleep train him??
our little fellow was very aware mommy and breast feed only rooms away....
in the end my suggestion was to continue bf at night (up to 5 times) and try again when he is more understanding.

Afreshcuppateaplease and LolitaLempicka - he is happy to eat pieces of food, eg fruit, toast etc. For the lumpy soups/ stir fries kind of stuff, I am not pureeing til smooth, I'm essentially mashing it a bit in the blender. He is happy to eat lumps the size of rice or lentils, but not the size of beans or chickpeas. He gags on rice unless it's been done in the blender. I do steamed fruit in the blender so that it can be cooked less; I guess I don't need to but it's less faff than cooking and storing collections of cooked fruit in larger pieces - our freezer isn't very large.
Baby rice gets added to the fruit to help him feel full, because we've got it left over from DH's batch-buying habits when DS was smaller....

Also - pasta done in the blender so it's like risoni means he'll eat it all happily; but pieces of pasta - he will eat three out of a bowlful and the rest will go on the floor, in his hair, down his shirt, etc. So I give him a few bits to play with/ eat, and then the rest done like risoni where I feed him or he feeds himself, with a spoon.

Amounts of food - child size bowl filled about half to 2/3 of height of sides. 1-2 bits of toast. So fairly big portions.

Dc4 is 15 months

Yesterday he had

Beaker of milk and two weetabix

Banana

Cheese sandwich, 2 cherry toms and a yogurt

Tangerine

Fish cake, mash and beans. Yogurt.

Baby biscuit and beaker of milk before bed

I just chop his food into managable pieces.
He also sleeps more than your ds. He will usually get up at 6am, sleep say 930-12 then have another hour and half around 3 and go to bed at 7

When you say 1-2 bits of toast do you mean 1-2 quarters?slices?

Don’t know if it helps but my son is 15 months (approx 75th centile) and his daily pattern is
0630-0700 breastfeed
0800 breakfast- 1 xweetabix 1x small yoghurt or adult plain porridge oats with raisins & 1/2 chopped banana or 1 large slice whole meal toast and jam and 1x small yoghurt
Mid- morning snack and water - breadsticks and chopped fruit (pear/grapes/ orange or banana
Lunch- water and sandwiches- made from 1 slice whole meal bread with cheese/tuna/cream cheese or cheese on toast or scrambled egg all with cherry tomatoes and cucumber sticks then chopped fruit/mini rice pudding and usually a small treat (yoghurt raisins/plain biscuit)
Mid afternoon - water and piece of fruit/rice cakes
Tea- whatever the family eats- spag bol/ fish pie/ pasta / mild curry/ roast dinner
1830-1900 breastfeed and bed

He either sleeps through or wakes once at 0300-0400 and I do give him a breastfeed then.

My initial thought was you are still breastfeeding a fair bit and could think of reducing feeds- maybe mid morning? I always found this one the easiest to drop with my 3 DC and to offer fruit instead.

Baby rice is highly refined with little nutritional benefit. It seems strange to give something like that to a toddler. There seems to be a lot of sugar in his diet, this cannot be helping.

Cross post. He definitely doesn’t need baby rice now. It would be better for him to have raw fruit now.Steaming fruit makes it much more sweet and babies can overdevelop their sweet tooth. Ripe pear and halved grapes might be a thought.
My DS3 can mess on with pasta- I just get fusilli and chop it up. Quick cook varieties are softer and I’ve found of all my 3 he can be fussy if pasta is too firm

Are you spoon feeding him?

Lolita not sure what baby rice is like where you are but here it is brown rice flakes with added iron. So not particularly bad, adds bulk and iron and micronutrients that come with brown rice. Not as good as eating rice, but not as bad as the cooked fruit i am adding it to.

Changed to grated apple with yoghurt for dessert tonight; he ate a few spoonfuls before deciding it was more fun to pull it out of his mouth and spread it all over the high chair...

For similar reasons, parts of meals involving spoons are about 50/50 me spoon feeding, him feeding/playing/exploring. I get that exploration is important, so give him the opportunity, but if i leave him to do all the feeding, most of the food inevitably ends up on the floor. Standoffs where I hold the food but give him the spoon just result in tantrums at the moment. So he isn't the world's greatest self feeder but he'll get there.

re toast, i meant slices. Wholemeal/rye/spelt/chia/flaxseed/ seeded, very little salt, no sugar. Peanut butter is just beaten up peanuts, no added anything.

I concede definitely too much cooked fruit & have moved to stop that as of tonight. Otherwise his diet is pretty good. He likes fish, pulses, veggies, spices.

Details of his diet and feeding habits do make it fairly obvious that I am not doing well in the "just get on with it" area. So rather than having a self-feeder who eats his food I have a mess maker who often wants to be fed or has to be fed to actually get food in. Similarly re sleep... I have tried so so hard to get him to self settle, sleep for longer, etc and it just bloody doesn't work. I already know that his lack of sleep is a problem, that is why I am asking for advice...

Does he tell you he is hungry at night. My DS was similarly huge. At 15 months he would stand in his cot and yell 'I NEEEEEEED MILK!' at us down the stairs.

We gave him a bottle of cows milk at the time we went to bed (10-11pm) to get him through the night until he was 2!

I remember discussing with my friend whether it would be acceptable to just leave a packet of sandwiches in the corner of his cot.

No idea what baby rice is like where I come from, I didn’t think anyone used it anymore. But why use baby rice for a child? Why not actual brown rice?

I think you're assuming his sleep issues are hunger related. Why not breastfeed him earlier than 4am and see if it's the comfort he needs? I know you say he feeds all night long but at least he'd be getting more sleep.

My 98th centile DS is 12mo and still feeds frequently at night, sometimes twice, often more. He eats well, has 1.5 hour nap 8:30-10 and and 1.5-2 hours from 1pm. He might be thirsty, hungry, teething, feeling a bit unwell, or just need some comfort and that's ok.

I think if you want to night wean, that's ok too but you need a better plan than what is happening at the moment. More daytime sleep and look at something like Dr Jay Gordon.

but how the hell is this woman I know posting pictures of her (normal looking!) 7 month old baby on SM and proclaiming he weighs 13kg!!! my baby is 9mo and (hasn't been weighed for a month or two) not more than 10kg.

Thanks all. We were trying to night wean but it may just not be realistic. Will feed him a bit earlier & see if it helps