Reverse Cycling or Day Weaning in a 1 y.o.

[Jaimee]

Ds is 12.5 months old and for the last week has been sleeping horribly at night.  He's not the best sleeper ordinarily (wakes every 2-3 hours), but now he's waking up every 30-90 minutes.  During the day, he is active (learning to walk) and eats a lot (a lot!) of solid foods.  I offer the breast regularly, but he often refuses it.  Sometimes he will even refuse to nurse when I'm putting him down for naps, preferring to suck his thumb and snuggle against my breast, but not latch on.   Then at night he's waking frequently and will often nurse.  But I should note, I have to take his thumb out of his mouth and sort of shove my breast at him to get him to nurse.  Otherwise he will snuggle back to sleep, but this can take a long time and then he just wakes up again half an hour later.  For my own sanity, I try hard to get him to nurse so that he sleeps a bit longer.

I guess I'm confused at what is going on here and how to proceed.  I don't want to wean entirely, but I certainly wouldn't be sad if he decided to night wean.  Problem is, it appears that he has nearly DAY weaned instead!  And then why the frequent night waking if it's still a struggle to get him to latch on?  Sometimes he needs to potty (we EC), but most of the time the waking seems unexplained.  I would chalk it up to a developmental milestone (learning to walk), teeth (though I don't see any since of that right now), possibly food issue (since he's eating so many solids now), but the nursing issue is what gets me.  Why has he nearly stopped nursing during the day?  Does this sound like weaning?  My daughter was an avid nurser up until she starting skipping sessions around 2 years old and then fully weaned at 27 months.  So this is a bit foreign to me!

He's an active one y.o. and he has a high energy 4 y.o. sister, so carving out quiet time to sit down and nurse isn't the easiest thing to do.  Nursing prior to offering him solids rarely works either.  He just wants the solids.  How can I encourage more day time nursing and less night time nursing without risking weaning all together? 

Thanks in advance!