Hungry at bedtime

[jwoodbri]

This seems to be happening fairly often lately: our almost 4 yr old after putting on pjs, brushing teeth, reading books etc decides he is hungry and needs to eat as we are tucking him in bed. Infinitely frustrating for me... I don't want him to go to bed hungry if he truly is but he's not mentioning it before I tuck him in and he should have had more for dinner.

Tonight we had dinner at a friend's house. Had a ton of pasta on his plate which he refused to share with his brother because he was going to eat it all. He didn't eat much because he wanted to get down to play so I believe he probably is hungry but we were home for an hour and half before he told me he was hungry as I'm walking out of his room.

I told him to try to go to sleep. (He of course came out 1 minute later and then about 2 mins after that and I sent him back again telling him he needed to try for longer than that.) He's been in there for a while now. My thinking was if he was truly really hungry then he would stay awake and if he wasn't really that hungry he would just fall asleep.

What would you do?

Thanks!

[BellinghamCrunchie]

I really do think that sometimes they don't notice they are hungry until they are settled down. Then it hits them, "oh! I'm hungry!"

It might be an attempt to delay bedtime, but I think I'd feed him anyway. I might start incorporating a bedtime snack right before toothbrushing, something with protein.

I pretty much let DD eat when she wants to (when her body tells her to). It happens all the time that she doesn't eat much supper and then is hungry later. I don't care. I'd rather that she listen to her body then eat on a schedule.

[LynnS6]

Our bedtime routine includes a small snack. We do: pjs, snack, brush teeth, reading, lights out.

Ds always needs a snack. (He's tall and skinny and I think he just burns a lot of fuel.) Dd wants a snack about 2/3 the time, and skips it the rest. It depends very much on how much they've eaten for the whole day, not just dinner.

Kids get distracted at times. I don't think it makes sense to deny a snack because they didn't eat much at dinner. Heck, I tend to eat only 1/2 my lunch when I'm at work, then realize about 3 pm that I'm hungry. So, I've learned to pack a lunch that can be easily divided up over a couple of hours.

[jwoodbri]

He ended up coming down again and I told him he could get something to eat if he did it himself and put himself back to bed. Well and that it had to be healthy and quick ie cheese stick/slice, yogurt tube etc.

I like adding a snack to the bedtime routine. I think I will give that a try with him.

Thanks ladies!

[JL83]

DD doesn't figure out she's hungry until she settles down enough to notice. So a good snack is part of bedtime.

We generally insist that it's a solid snack like milk and cheese or toast with butter/cream cheese. Something that will stick in her tummy and keep her full.

It's really helped her sleep and makes life easier.

[sebandg'smama]

We always do a snack as part of bedtime routine. Usually a bowl of yogurt. Nothing too exciting or else my dd will opt out of supper because she knows she has a bedtime snack coming!

-Melanie