With much support dd is now down to 3 day feeds and 1 middle of the night feed. She is doing well on solids at long last and while she doesn't do breakfast (she has a lovely long luxurious feed first thing though) she has a good am tea, lunch, pm tea and dinner.
I would love to drop the middle of the night feed. Her sleeping is not the best. We have managed to bring her last day feed to the beginning of the bedtime routine and although it is no longer taking hours to settle her it is at least an hour (it was taking hours when feeding to sleep as she would wake as soon as breast was removed but only liked to nurse with me in a sitting position so you can imagine that was not particularly restful for me!!) She wakes at least twice a night and I can usually resettle with cuddles for at least one wake up but she really wants a feed for the second. She then generally wakes around 5 in the morning for the day.
Even though we have come so far with her and both sleeping and eating have improved I just need a little more as I am still exhausted. If dh could sometimes do the second settle (say in the weekends) then that would help. She may even learn to resettle without a feed (she says with eternal optimism) So far when we have tried it she has been distraught!!! and she seems genuinely hungry as she drinks and drinks at this feed. I have even tried offering her more feeds during the day to see if that helped but to no avail.
How can I gently drop this feed?? I have heard about slowly decreasing the time the child feeds for but if I take her off before she is finished she is just as distraught as if she hasn't had any feed at all.