EDIT: My best advice (not very clear in the full message below) is to talk to your doctor about going to a sleep clinic for an overnight evaluation. It's very easy. You just go there to sleep for one night while they monitor your breathing and brain function. They may be able to give you a simple, physical solution to improve your sleep.
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Robert, I know where your coming from with this one. I used to do the same thing. The only way I found to beat it is to improve the quality of my sleep. Meaning more exercise during the day so I am tired enough to go to bed, ensuring my sleeping place is comfortable, unlit and
quiet and getting up in the morning instead of letting myself sleep in. Now I find if I start letting myself sleep in (uni holidays at the moment), the 3 am desperate need for a snack returns.
There are two (maybe three) seperate and important issues to be dealt with here.
1) The reason you are waking at night when you should be getting deep sleep.
This is either physiological or environmental. On the physiological side, do you snore or does your partner say that you sometimes stop breathing for a moment while you're asleep, then gasp a breath and then return to normal breathing? If so, it may be sleep apneas that are waking you.
A rather long story but it might be helpful: my mother slept poorly throughout my childhood, never really tired at bedtime and always needing an afternoon nap. When I was in my 20s she was finally diagnosed with sleep apnea and put on a CPAP machine. Her mild insomnia, lack of energy, afternoon naps and (although she still doesn't know that I know about this), night time fridge raids suddenly stopped. On a recent Xmas trip to stay with her I discovered she is no longer using the CPAP machine. Her doctor recommended she stop using the machine as she was no longer suffering from sleep apneas due to significant weight loss and could sleep through the night on her own. Unfortunately, due to other circumstances, she has now regained most of the weight. And now her snoring and her night eating has returned with a vengence.
It was heartbreaking to hear my mother return to the kitchen 5 or 6 times a night (the guest room is near the kitchen and the noisy fridge door woke me each time) to eat whatever she could find so that she might have a chance of going back to sleep. My first night there I cried for her, knowing how terrible she must feel, when physiology and psychology combine into a powerful eating disorder. I am, of course, not implying that your troubles are of anywhere near the same magnitude. I realise that my mother is suffering from other emotional issues that make this a full-blown eating disorder for her and not just a troublesome habit. But at the same time, I recognise in your description, in my own past behaviour and in her past behaviour, indicators of the same problem - the inability to achieve uninterrupted sleep.
I talked to her about going back to using the CPAP machine and hopefully she will go back to the sleep clinic to have her breathing assessed again.
On the environmental front, all I can suggest is ensuring darkness and quiet. I know that's not very helpful if you have a partner who snores, though.
2) The reason that eating something allows you to go back to sleep.
This could be psychological or physiological or most likely a combination of both. For me though, I think it was almost all psychological. I know I sincerely believed that something yummy to eat was the only thing that would let me go back to sleep. I tried to overcome this by having a drink, telling myself before I went to sleep that I would
not get out of bed when I woke up,
not go to the kitchen etc. None of these things worked
I found that when I woke up, my body was telling me I needed to pee and my brain was telling me I needed something yummy to eat. The only thing that has resolved these issues for me is fixing my sleep pattern. Amazingly, I still drink the same amount of water (if not more) and yet I don't actually need to pee in the middle of the night.
The reasons for me were:
a) a desire to eat the foods we were was not allowed to eat (this goes way back to the "food is the enemy" attidues in my household throughout my childhood. Biscuits and soft drinks that we were not allowed to have because they were for my father, but if you ate them in the night no-one knew who did it so you could get away with it).
b) comfort and reassurance because being awake at 3 am is lonely and troubling and stressful when you know you need the sleep so you can get to work on time the next day
c) being able to blame whatever I ate on a strange lack of self-control brought on my being sleepy, rather than accepting that I was wide awake and doing it with full knowledge of the ramifications. I look back now and I realise I would occasionally make a mental note of something in the fridge or cupboard that I would be able to eat that night. That really frightens me now when I think back to it!
On the physiological point, I can't help wondering if maybe there is a blood sugar element to it. I know there is a phenomenon of a morning blood sugar spike for some people, I wonder if it is somehow related. Are our bodies giving us a misguided chemical trigger? More reasearch needed on this point.
I realise this is a long and probably rather confusing post. But I hope it gives you a few ideas and, more importantly, lets you know that there are lots of us who understand what it's like and that it
can be overcome.
Em
P.S. Tess, please let us know how you find the book. If you recommend it, I will give it a read so I might have a chance of helping my Mum. I doubt she will go back to using the CPAP machine on her own while her emotional need to binge at night has such a powerful grip on her
Eating during the night?
Anyway--check out the link, and see if this looks like something that might be helpful to you. I'd give you a review, but I'm still in the reading/thinking process regarding the book, and the advice. Hope that this might be at least a bit helpful... 
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