What next?

[GenevaJoey]

My 16 month old has never been great at sleeping, but I have been night weaning over the last few weeks (it definitely is not a quick or easy solution) as she was definitely waking due to habit rather than hunger or even comfort. This has been moderately successful - she wakes less often, and maybe has a night or even two a week where she "sleeps through" for about 10 hours, but i still dont feel we've cracked it. If she wakes up before 4am ish, she will have some water, a cuddle, then eventually fall asleep. She will only fall asleep on me (or her dad) though, and i have to wait til she is fast asleep before i can put her down in her cot.

If she wakes after 4am, then she is a real nightmare. I refuse to feed her and she refuses to sleep. I have tried cuddling her to sleep, offering water, pacing up and down the room, leaving her to cry in her cot, and it doesnt work. She may go back to sleep after a couple of hours, but more often than not she is up for the day. I really try not to feed her til after 6am, but if she wakes then (like this morning) she wakes crying, and is therefore still tired, and wont go back to sleep (I nearly got her back to sleep after 40 mins of feeding, cuddling, rocking this morning, but no luck).

I just dont know what to do. She should be able to last til breakfast (12 hours without food), and occasionally she does, but she doesn't often. I am just so worried that she's never getting enough sleep. She has one nap a day at nursery, and thats really variable, lasting between 40 mins and 2.5 hours. She generally eats plenty during the day and has about 2 breastfeeds, which i'd like to cut down with the eventual aim of weaning completely.

Has anyone any suggestions, how to get her back to sleep quicker if she wakes early in the night? And what to do about these early wake-ups, when she evidently needs more sleep? I think I have broken the milk/sleep association, so she doesn't automatically go back to sleep if i feed her at that time.

Thanks!