17 month old early waking

[Namechangemum100]

Hi guys, looking for some advice!

For the last few weeks my 17 month old has been all over the place. The main issue we are having is that she is refusing to eat dinner in the evening (maybe the heat), and then waking in the night hungry and needing a bottle. Some nights she wakes at 1am, others like today it's 4am.

I can't get her to eat more at dinner as she just screams, but she hasn't needed a bottle in the night since she was 11 months.

What to do? Just ride it out until the weather cools down? So frustrating as I also have a 3 month old.

Ah that sounds tough. It may be thirst as well as hunger in the night with this heat - would a bottle of water sate her enough but also break the habit?

Or maybe bring lunch earlier so she's really hungry by dinner? Have a few dinners of really delicious treats to get her back into the swing of it. I have resorted to watching videos on YouTube (usually funny Disney songs) and pausing it until the next mouthful goes in. I never feel I can recommend screen time and food but it was very successful

Also at that age, one spoonful of spag bol to get one spoonful of strawberry yoghurt worked well, as gross as it sounds!

Could you do bigger meal at lunch time and then more picnic style tea, or eat evening meal bit earlier? Could offer cereal or toast before bed time? Does she go back to sleep after milk?

Unfortunately lunch is often just as bad as dinner, always has been.

She used to reliably eat her breakfast and dinner, and then lunch was a bit hit and miss but I didn't let it bother me as she was eating the other 2 meals. Now that she is having a bottle at 4am, she often isn't hungry for breakfast, doesn't particularly like lunch and refuses dinner, so she is having 3 bottles a day 🙄

She does go back to sleep after the bottle, but can often be a bi my restless.

Unfortunately she doesn't have any favourite foods I can tempt her with, she has been so hard to weak and is completely indifferent to all food accept fruit.

Maybe water the milk down so it isn't as filling? Obviously make sure she still gets enough milk overall but that shouldn't be an issue if she's upped the quantity anyway.

How about a late breakfast and basically skip lunch, then early dinner.

Mine have got into some eating ruts through the toddle years where no meal will be eaten properly and they just graze on a tiny amount of food. It gradually gets better. No toddler stage lasts, there's always an equally awful but different one waiting round the corner