weaning - how to drop 5am feed that gets her back to sleep?

[india's mum]

I'm in the process of weaning my 9 month old dd.  She was having 4 bf's a day, now the lunchtime one is a bottle of formula.  that has been going well for 2 weeks now, and i'm going to switch the before bed feed tomorrow.  After that is established, i'm going to drop the late afternoon feed.  The BIG question is... how do i handle the last feed?  She is waking consistently in the early morning (between 4:30am and 6:30am) for a feed (the longest feed of the day, she drinks every last drop i have!!!).  Then she goes back to sleep for 2 hours or so and then wakes for the day.  Any advice on how to get her to sleep those extra couple hours without feeding her until she's up for the day (at which time i'd give her a bottle).  ? thanks.

[Katet]

I can't really advise any "easy" way... I gave my ds a paci when I wanted to drop the early feed as I was preg ( he was 13mo) & 7monthss later still had him doing a 5/6am wakeup, which only changed when we went to 1 nap when he was 20months old
i would suggest that you probably have to do pu/pd for that wakeup, but as she takes a really big feed then you might need to cut back 2mins every few days until it gets to about 3mins feeding & then stop otherwise she is probably too hungry to go back to sleep by any other method

Oh & Love your dd name, I wanted to call a daughter India, but dh would never have agreed, so maybe that is why we have 2 boys!

[india's mum]

thanks for the advice. i always feed her on both breasts so maybe i can try only doing one side and then sneaking the paci in... we'll see how it goes! :roll:

We've had lots of nice comments about her name (it is actually India-Mae).  My dh came up with it!!