My DD is going to be 9 months in a few days and she still hasn't slept through the night. I'm still breastfeeding and we've been doing BLW since she was 6.5 mo (it's going well and she's eating more and more food).
We're currently co-sleeping (and have been since she was 3-4 months) but she's waking up at least 2-3 times every night.
We have an evening routine (bath, pyjamas, story, boob) and she usually goes to sleep around 9pm. She doesn't self settle and I need to be with her until she fall asleep either cuddling her or shushing. She sleeps with a dummy most of the time. The problem is she'll only do one sleep cycle (about 30-40 minutes) and will then wake up and want to eat again. That continues until we go to bed, usually until 11pm, and then she'll wake up 2-3 times at night and eats some more - there's no other way of settling her but giving her the boob! Suffice it to say we're a bit tired and would really love some sleep. I'm sure she'd benefit from it too!
She's on 75th centile now and weighs 9.5 kgs at least. I'm pretty sure she wakes up out of habit not because she is hungry.
My friend suggested that we can wean her off night feeds (or snacks) by offering her water instead. She said the best way would be for me to sleep in another room and for my husband to comfort DD when she wakes up and offer her water so that she doesn't smell milk. My friend claims that system worked for both her babies. There was some crying but her DH was in the room the whole time comforting the baby so it wasn't a full on CIO.
What do you think? Has anyone tried this method? I'm willing to try it because DD's sleep habits are pretty bad and I feel really tired during the day and don't have energy to play with DD... At some stage it would also be great to get our bed back!