Babies are so individual, Loulou, and if you're loving that morning feed, I'd say keep doing it. Now I've weaned Charlie I do miss him coming into bed with us at 3am to co-sleep until the morning. At the time I thought I would have preferred the sleep, but now it's gone, I really do miss it.

And yes, there is no magic answer to getting them to sleep all night. You can do all the right things, but your baby will still develop his own routines, especially if you don't CC. I was happy to follow Charlie's routines in the end, and eventually, despite people telling me that letting him nurse to sleep would mean he wouldn't learn to self-settle, he not only did learn to self-settle, he now sleeps 8pm to 8am most nights. It just took him to 11 months to do it, is all, where other babies sleep through at 12 weeks, and yet others at 6 months.

You sounds like you're doing fabulously. And I reckon if you're going to have to wake to give him water anyway, you're probably just as well to give him the breast and be done with it. He'll probably sleep longer too after with a belly full of milk than water.