carbs at dinner and early morning hunger

[bean-e]

Does anyone know why whenever I feed my daughter 18 months some rice (even small amts eg. 2 tablespoon) at dinner time with her meat and veggies that she will be hungry by around 4am?  

I have noticed that if I feed her only protein and veggies at dinner, then she can sleep fairly well until around 6:30am.  However, if I give her some white rice (she is allergic to brown rice) in addition to her meat and veggies even if it's the same amount of protein and veggies, then she ends up asking for food or milk around 4am.  Is there some funky blood sugar thing that I need to know?  Does anyone have suggestions as to how to avoid this other than just feeding her protein and veggies at dinner?  

thanks.

[bcblondie]

This is just a total guess but I do know that protein keeps you full the longest of any type of calorie. So maybe she's filling up on empty carb calories and not getting as much protein and fibre which keeps her full.

Milk has a lot of protein so it would make sense why she craves that or other food.

[bean-e]

That would make sense if she was having lots of rice and have no space left for protein.  That, however, is not the case.  She can have the same amount of protein, veggies, and the only variable is carbs.  If I added in the carbs, then she will invariably wake up in the middle of the night to ask for food.

[bcblondie]

Ok then my next best guess is carbs are just stimulating her appetite.  I guess that's kind of a given... but I do know that eating sugar makes you want more sugar... and lactose is a kind of sugar...