Sleeping and Eating and Peeing…………
Sooooo. A doctor friend of mine pointed out to me that at 13 months, Pookah should be sleeping through the night and not waking up to eat.
And of course, most of my bloggy friends/twitter friends feel the same.
Well dammit, Pookah is still waking up at the most twice a night to eat. I tried last night to not feed him when he woke up, and the child sat up, pointed at the bottle warmer and said:
“Ba BA!”
He’s hungry.
So even though yes, I would LOVE LOVE for Pookah to be sleeping through the night, I know why he is not. He’s not getting enough to eat during the day. All of November and some of December, Pookah was sick. Not eating well at all due to ear infections and colds and intolerances. So in the last few weeks, his appetite has definitely improved. But he needs more than baby food.
Enter the table food drama. The drama to get him to eat it! He eats regular oatmeal in the morning. But that is the only table food I can get him to eat consistently. He hates baby veggies( I can get him to eat the carrots, sweet potatoes, and mixed veggies). And regular veggies are a trial. He will eat cheese, and yogurt and amazingly those Gerber Puffs that he wouldn’t touch a few months ago. He will also eat those fruit snacks for toddlers by Gerber. And cherrios. All on his own.
Hopefully, his daycare will help us in this transitional period and he will start to eat more filling meals.(ie table food). But for now, it’s a struggle. Like he went to daycare yesterday, and didn’t eat well. So I fed him baby food when he got home. And he went at it like he hadn’t eaten all day.
But there is one more thing…..Pookah pees like a racehorse.
All night long.
By 1 am when he usually wakes up, his diaper is so full that sometimes it leaks. And I end up having to change everything.
And by the time he wakes up again around 7, it’s full again. But not leaking.
I’m wondering if it’s the wet diaper that initially wakes him up, and then because he’s up he eats?????
But what on earth do I do about that???
I’ve got too many toddler problems over here.
Sigh.
HELP!
You’re right. He’s not eating enough during the day which is why he wakes up after you put him down. I say if oatmeal is all he will eat then feed him the oatmeal at night as well. A full belly sleeps a lot longer. Jas has her night time smoothe(whole milk and apple sauce) in her bootle either when I put her down to sleep or at around 3 to 5 am. If she doesn’t have it before bed and she didn’t eat enough before going down I have a fussy girl at aroind 1am or so. So I make sure she’s good and full before she goes to sleep.
The pee thing, maybe you should get some huggies(or pampers I’m not sure who makes em) good nights diapers. They are for that exact problem.
I hope some of this helps.
@Krissy: You know, I completely forgot about those overnight diapers!I think I saw some with Pampers and never even connected the dots!!!! *quickens to grab purse*
I had the same problem. For me it was not that the baby was hungry she just would not sleep in her own bed. I had to put her in my bed to sleep through the nite. Table food is hard I started at 10 months feeding her regular food and the thing was she would only eat cooked food. You may just have a picky eater my son is that way he would only eat bread at that age so I had to buy 3 loaves of bread a week so he could eat. Try small things like apple sauce, jello, also he may like soft foods like grits. One of my friends bought a food processor and ground up th food so that the baby would eat. Good luck
I forgot all about jello!
The other thing you could try is to go one diaper size up. A bigger size will hold more through the night. And for food, I agree that blending up table food in a blender (I use a magic bullet) until it’s soft and mushy might help him eat a variety of table foods. It’s the only way I can get the preshus to eat some table foods (still!) and he’s 18 months old.
Krissy’s smoothie idea has been great for us! Just a jar of baby fruit with the milk bottle (or in Pookah’s case, lactaid, or whatever youre using to repklace whole milk), that way I know she’s getting that whole jar of food!
Izzy has a thing for pasta, so I cook it really soft, and let her have it. she loses her mind for noodles and plain tortilla chips, lol.
I started with sweet potatoes for table food and quickly saw that the flavor of our food was more appealing so I started making my own and seasoning each the way I would want to eat them. After that he was eating up a storm and is well and healthy. We had the same issues when we were sleep training but yes he’s not eating enough during the day, I would give him to heaviest bottle right before bed time and make sure he drinks a good amount and the itis kicks in. Target’s diaper is GREAT overnight diapers and only cost $11 for a jumbo box. Worked for us, Good Luck!
thanks for the advice ladies! I never thought about mixing the milk with something in the bottle! And those overnight diapers are GREAT!
kaua still take 1 or 2 bottles a night, but i know he’s taking them more for comfort than hunger. Since we’ve started sleep training, he seems to be able to function off just 1 bottle. But anyway, just wanted to share, that Pookah is not the only one.
Glad to know I’m not the only one!