Night-weaning 10 month old

[Minkyscamp]

Just looking for some advice really, or at least suggestions of what to avoid...

My LG has just turned 10 months. She's never been a great sleeper (reflux and allergies maybe haven't helped) and has always woken every couple of hours. Since she turned about 6 months, we cut her nighttime feeds down to 2, by just cuddling her back to sleep at the other wakings. This worked fine, and she still has 2 feeds a night, at about 11-12ish and 4-5ish.

Over the last month, we've been doing some gentle sleep training to try and help her settle herself for the other wakings. She's responded really well to this, and will now settle herself at the beginning of the night, and for most other wakings, save that she might need a quick cuddle/pat/shush occasionally.

We'd now really like to reduce down her feeds to once a night. She eats loads in the day and is a chunk, I certainly don't feel worried that she would miss the calories from one nighttime feed, and i'm sure she'd make them up in the day if she needed to. The main reason for doing it is to try and get a long phase of sleep each night, for her benefit and mine. I'm back at work in 2 months, and could really use more than 3/4/ hours at a time.

So....that brings me to my question. I really don't know how to try and wean her from 2 feeds to 1. Especially without introducing more bad habits that we will have to then sort out in the future. She's doing really well with the self-settling, and I don't want to ruin that by starting to cuddle her to sleep when she's wanting a feed. However I also don't want to leave her to cry if she's wanting milk, as obvioulsy it's a habit that she might not find easy to break.

Does anyone have any suggestions as to how best to approach this?

Other stuff that might be relevant: She's on three good meals a day and bf. She still feeds 4/5 times a day, but the duration of each feed is starting to reduce now (i.e. just taking one side instead of both).

I'll post this on the sleep board too...just wondering if there is anyone with experience of weaning a bf baby that might have some good advice.

[FATEdestiny]

The night breastfeeds are probably 90% comfort and 10% calories. Really she wants those feeds more for comfort than anything else.

So if aiming to stop feeding, aim to replace with an alternate source of comfort. A special toy for example, or snuggle blanket.