My 30 mo. old ds has been waking in the night for several months asking for milk because he is hungry because he won't eat or drink much during the day. Some nights he will down 2 6oz cups, one at 1am and another at 3 or 4am. His frequent wakings disrupt his sleep and he is now sleep deprived and very cranky all day so I know that he needs to eat more so that he can get better sleep.
Please help- How can we encourage him to eat his food so that he can sleep but not take an hour to do it? Thank you for taking the time to read this novel.
During the day I can tell when he is getting hungry because he gets cranky and cries easily but he doesn't seem to realize that he is hungry and if he ate something he would feel better. I always ask him what he wants to eat or let him choose between 2 options hoping that if he chooses the food he will eat it but he still only eats 1 or two bites and says he is done. We talk about why it is important to eat our food - so that we feel good and we can play without getting tired. We praise him for eating and try to encourage him as much as possible. We ahve finally resorted to telling him he needs to eat a certain amount before he can play to make sure that he eats something, like half a toast and 1 sausage or 4 spoons of pasta, but it takes an hour to eat half a toast or the four spoons of pasta. Making him eat has helped him to stay alseep at night but I hate making him eat and I am worried that he will develop unhealthy eating habits.
He started eating even less and waking in the night when I started the baby on solid foods 5 months ago, which she has no problem eating everything in sight. I don't think he is overloading on milk, we give him milk after each meal (not before) and only 2oz when he wakes in the morning. Usually he doesn't drink all of the milk that he is given anyway. I also have to mention that he is allergic to cows milk so he cant have dairy products or those calorie dense foods that most kids eat like mac and cheese or cheese pizza. He has to have soy milk and yogurt which has half the calories and fat as cows milk and yogurt. He has not been sick at all in the last 6 months but he has gotten his 2 year mollars. Thank you so much for reading this, I know it was a novel, and thank you for your support and any suggestions or comments you have.
