Hey sweetie,
Sounds to me, like pps have said that your LO is ready for finger foods, having his own spoon (messy but they love it) and to be eating similarly to you!! I found that Dyllan progressed pretty quickly to lumps, mashes, finger foods, meats etc.
Try eating together and eating the same things (just a little babied down) and see how you go, you can only try...if he finds it too hard, take a step backwards!
Also a lot of bf babies wake overnight for a feed up until about 12 months from what I can gather, I'm not sure that it's "essential" but my LO stopped doing it of his own accord around then and I have quite a few friends who found the same thing!!
HTH
xxLizzie