Hello
Would be very grateful for help into our 4 year old son who is now regularly waking up at 3am unsettled and asking for milk.
A bit of background he was born 6 weeks Prem due to IUGR and has always been on the 1st centile for weight and height. He is much tinier than all of his friends and this is a source of anxiety for us (is seeing paeds dietician regularly). He co-sleeps with us as we gave up quite early on trying to get him into his own cot. He is attached to my wife at night which causes her problems sleeping as well.
We've done everything we can think of before bed. Stories, avoiding screen time 1 hour before, bath before bed, we also give him 240ml of full fat milk with pediasure (2 scoops) before bed.
He wakes up very unsettled between 3-4am and demands milk and if we decline he just cannot settle himself. My wife seems to think he is hungry and this coupled with the size anxiety means she obliges and prefers to give him milk.
I feel this is a bad precedent and essentially he cannot settle himself.
I appreciate that we've made a few bad decisions e.g. co-sleeping , never used controlled crying, any suggestions would be great as we are at the end of our tether.
We are keen to have another child as well but his overall clinginess and night time behaviour makes the thought of this frightening!