We had this problem with our toddler and have finally got her sleeping through the night without anything by the time she was three. We had trouble getting her to bed in the first place. She was not waking always in the night for milk - sometimes it was a sandwich and just sometimes for a chat or a cuddle but we were exhausted. When she was taking the food/milk in the night she would hardly eat anything in the day and it became a vicious circle. I feel it really wasn't a hunger issue - because she was getting attention in the night, she got used to this. We had a baby 5 months ago and couldn't handle it any longer so we took some advice and went cold turkey. It worked within 3 days - she was sleeping through the night without our help, but we followed a programme that took us a month to complete. It felt quite harsh to start, but it was not at all painful and it is the best thing we ever did. She now goes to bed at 6.45pm [it used to beabout 9pm] and sleeps through to between 6.30/8am every morning. If she does wake in the night, we just go trhough, tuck her back in and she goes off to sleep [most of the time!!].
If you'd like to know exactly how we did it, I can fill you in.
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