Milk and ASD

[eeniemeenieminiemoe2014]

posted before about my 2.5 year old milk guzzling toddler but cant find my post.

since she has had a pead appointment which has said she is almost certainly autistic and to be treated as if she is until her final assessment which is in 6-9 months. we have been referred to a dietician because she drinks 4-5 pints of milk a night and in the mean time to very slowly water it down. I have watered it down and am finding she is actually waking up for more bottles and more ofteb so still having the same quantity of milk just over more bottles because of the water. I cant cope with even more wake ups but it could be months for the further appointments for help so do I stop watering it down? or carry on and cope with the more wake ups?

Does she eat well in the day? That is a lot of milk and it can inhibit things like iron absorption and will be filling her up!

I wonder if a really filling snack before bed would help? Ds used to have a full fat yoghurt and a couple of biscuits as supper when he was little.

she is a poor eater but i think its because she is filling up on milk. even as a weaning baby we struggled to get her off milk and all we ended up doing was shifting her on to milk overnight instead and still no better eating. feel stuck in a vicious cycle

she is moderately anemic and generally low accross the board although just about within normal

Ds has always eaten a very limited diet too, so I get it

The waking at night must be wearing you all out though so if it was me I'd probably look at feeding stuff during the day to fill her up even if it's not what most people see as a healthy diet. For kids with very limited diets the aim is getting calories in, you can always supplement to mop up any nutritional deficiencies.

im a single mum with a 9 month old too, completely broken at the moment!

the only thing she will eat substantial amounts of is chocolate and extra strong mints. she wont eat cakes or sweets so i dont think its her choosimg sweet stuff or milk or nothing. she doesnt seem to want too dry or too wet.

Could you co sleep, mine sleeps better with a warm body next to them,

Id try and water the bottles more drastically over short period and hope her appetite increases quickly.

Would she take bottles during the day with something like chocolate version of this
www.boots.com/paediasure-shake-vanilla-flavour-400g-10168497

even if you could get her milk upped during the day instead with something extra in it. Friend had success with a dummy replacing bottles at night, not ideal at this age but she said her toddler stopped waking so much for bottles

You must be exhausted doing it all alone

I would probably focus on trying to move her milk consumption to daytime first, maybe just water down night milk but make daytime milk normal strength. So the first step is moving her consumption of calories to daytime hours so it's not such a big change.

I have to co sleep with the baby as the only way I can keep him asleep through all the night terrors, nightmares and milk wakings is to have him in my room where there isnt room for a cot (only in a 2 bed). I also dont think i would be able to adjust dd to sleeping somewhere different either.

she rejected a dummy, i think beause its dry but Im going to work on increasing day time consumption as thats definitely when night became an issue when i stopped day time milk.

I'm done with changing pee soaked sheets twice a night too!

Good luck

oh that might be why shes not constipated like youd expect.

she does eat a small but varied diet

chicken
pasta
rice
fruit: grapes, apples, bananas and oranges
vegetables: sweetcorn and tomatoes
she likes pesto on her pasta and mayo and sauce as long as theres not too much and its well mixed in.
chicken nuggets
thin chips
bread sticks
pom bears/quavers
will occasionally eat mince as long as its not thick
cheese grated
yoghurts

think that is it. she only eats in small quantities!

annoyingly she doesnt ever say she doesnt like somethimg she just leaves it so i have to try a few times and see if shes eating it or not!

Sorry, not very helpful but just to say I'm finding all this very interesting even though my DS is 9 now. Having a 'd'oh!' moment because he was a milk guzzling toddler and i just never connected it with ASD (diagnosed a year ago).

My DD is 3 and is exactly the same! Sorry I have no advice but you are not alone in this.

Same here with DD. She picks at food but tries to mainline on milk. It's really hard to not give in but I draw the line at more than one milk top up in the eve/night.

The other night, when I refused a top up she muttered "for goodness sake!' 😂

I give mine 'supper' before bed so I know she isn't asking for milk through hunger. Will she eat cereal? Porridge? I have even spoon fed her in front of tv (not ideal but I will do anything to get 7 hours straight sleep).

Not sure how to advise other than try to replace the comfort aspect with something else - a softie or music?

Mine is 3 too!

Also, I try to vary with soy milk so she isn't having so much dairy.

She wont eat cereal or porridge, doesnt really like bread.

If I try and refuse her she just screams and screams and screams. she will make herself sick and hit her head against the wall. She doesnt have the communication skills yet to understand I dont think.

I changed them at 11pm :(

Poor you. That is really tough. What help can you get? I can see how you can't not give her milk. Could you call the go and see if you can get help asap?