Valentine!
Good idea to switch around the milk and solids. Actually breastfeeding (or formula) is suposed to be your daughters main food (source of protien and calories) the first entire year of her life. I am not sure if you have read the Baby Whisperer book, but there is a techniques called Pick up/Put down. I will attempt to explain it, but the book does a fabulous job outlining a plan. When your daughter cries at 10:00 p.m. you will go in and attempt to soothe her before picking her up (whispering something like, "it's o.k., it's just time for nite-nite) and maybe giving her a light pat on the back. If she continues to cry, pick her up and soothe her (right there next to her cot) and AS SOON as she stops crying you lay her back in her cot. You will do this over and over until she settles back down. With some babies this process can take over an hour to get the baby to settle back down in her own cot. The point is to let her know you are there for her, but you are teaching her how to fall asleep and stay asleep in her own cot. With my daughter it took about 1 & 1/2 weeks of doing the pick-up/put down (p.u/p.d) before she "learned" how to fall asleep on her own and soothe herself back to sleep when she would wake up in the night.
I am not sure what time your daughter goes down for her first nap of the day but just remember at her age between 2 and 3 hours of awake time (before her first nap) is usually all they can take before they become overtired. With my daughter I have to look for her tired cues. They usually come right at around 2 hours of awake (activity) time. These cues include; rubbing her eyes, gets really whiny, sometimes tugs as her ear, she looses all intrest in her toys and she won't make much eye contact with me. The overtiredness can cause nightwakings. If she is overtired it makes it much more difficult for her to fall back asleep at night too. 7:00 p.m. is a good bedtime (not too late).
You will have really be ready to work on the issue of keeping her in her cot. It will take time, effort and lack of sleep for a few days to possibly a week. She knows that all she has to do is cry at this time and mom will take me to her bed. So, she is accostumed to this and it will take a bit to break the habit. Start as you mean to go! Once you start implementing this with you daughter, you should follow through otherwise your daughter may get confused and more frustrated.
Hopefully some of this will help you. Please come back with more questions if you have any. There are fabulous people on this site that have been through the same things as you! I had to do the same thing with my daughter b/c I would bring her into my bed when she woke at 5:00 a.m. and I still wanted to sleep. It is much easier to bring her into bed, but I wasn't getting the sleep I wanted w/ her in bed and it was becoming a bad habit for her as well!
Good luck!
Shelby
