Ok I'm about to go and have a nice long soak with both my No Cry Sleep Solution, My ABA breastfeeding book and Pinky McKays toddler book but I would love some personal stories and ideas to run with too.

The situation is thus...

Sleeping - Ari has never been a sleeper. At 6mth a dr recommended we sedate her to get some rest as we had tried everything and nothing worked. Needless to say we didn't and have since discovered it was due to food intolerances. So she hasn't had the best start to sleeping but now only wakes 1-2 times a night (once around midnight-2am and again early morning 5am). She now has 1 daytime sleep although this varies greatly in length and time down as we don't have a predictable household routine (which there isn't much we can do about) She settles well with a dummy or occassionally being fed to sleep. At night we have a good bedtime routine and she nods off in her own toddler bed with me resting beside her, sometimes feeding her to help her settle down but not always.

Feeding - Ari loves BFing! She does take a bottle from dad and me occassionally and drinks water from a sippy cup. I love BFing and want to wait until she is 2 to wean but it is becoming very obvious that this girl is not going to self wean anytime soon and the don't offer, don't refuse isn't helping at all. At the moment most days she will have a boobie break at least 5-6 times a day + during the night. Which is a bit much for me. A know BF is awesome but I am over it... It is really draining me and to be honest I'm sick of having a little hand down my shirt all the time :-) It's starting to cause a bit of tension between Dh and I also as he isn't as fond of extended BF as I am.

So ideas please... How can I start weaning this little girl and working on getting her through the night without a feed? I'm open to all gentle suggestions, I'd prefer not to wean her cold turkey unless you really think it works without any hang ups.

thanks so much guys, look forward to reading your replies.