how do i stop my son getting up in the middle of the night and getting into all the food. its not just little bits its alot like for example, jelly, peanut butter but here not together he gets spoons and eats them seperately ice cream cones, bread, cheese, snacks any thing and everything you can think of he gets into it.how do i stop it.i have put up gates and he finds a way over them i lock things uop and then he finds soemthing else to get in to i just dont know anymore.i do give him a snack right before bed thinking that would hold him over but it doesnt seem to work. he is 5 yrs old.
You may want to seek professional help. It may be an eating disorder called night eating. You don't hear much about it, but I did a paper on it in Psychology class. It can be dangerous. You may have seen some programs on TV about it also. I would talk to your doctor, or see a psychologist.
The other responding mothers are right that you should consider if your son is doing this willfully, or if he has a condition. I also saw a special on "sleep eating". I would talk to your pediatrician about it. Maybe it would be a good idea to set up a video in the kitchen, (which is what I saw them do on the show) and let your doctor see it. If he is doing it conciously, then consider just locking up the kitchen at night and trying to be more strict about him eating his meals and snacks in the daytime.
Also, if he is waking up because he is hungry, maybe a before bedtime snack would hold him over, like milk and peanutbutter crackers, or something else healthy for him.
Good luck
Also - you did not mention how old your son is, or what kind of food schedule you are on.
I had a really big problem with my son doing the same thing. He wasnt eating during the day but when he knew that everyone was asleep he would come down and get into everything. Well I had a cabinet that I put a chain and a padlock. I even put a chain and padlock on the refrigator. After awhile he learned that he wasnt going to be able to get up and get into things every night. So know he eats everything he can before I go to upstairs to bed and now he only eats so much...like he will have a sandwich and a healthly snack and he has one junk food but I also starting things like crackers and such for when he was still hungry after eating all of that.
I've heard of a condition where people do this. They aren't even fully awake at the time. I would look into that, and seek counciling.
Your son could have an eating disorder. There is a disorder called Prader Willie Syndrome. It causes people to eat even when they aren't hungry. If your son always seemed hungry when he was a baby you might want to check into this. Otherwise the only you can do is to lock all cabinets, and the refrigerator. You can a lock that is a vinyl strap that goes on with double sided tape. It can be removed with Goo Gone when you don't need it anymore. You might even be able to use these on cabinets. It depends on your sons age though. He might be old enough to unlatch them himself.
