@krjt - I think we're inadvertently almost night weaned now, so I'll tell you what we did with our 16 month old. We had always shared our king sized bed, but we wanted to see if he would sleep for longer stretches in his own space (he was waking every 2-3 hours on a good night and every hour on a bad night). When he woke, sometimes he would nurse back to sleep and other times my husband or I could gently pat, etc. It was getting to be a nightmare with the pregnancy tiredness and I was often so frustrated at night because we had no plan.
So....we pulled up a twin bed next to our king (our mattress was already on the floor) and started putting him in there for naps for a couple days. Then we started putting him there at night. We made a deal that he would stay in the little bed until 4am and only my husband would go to him - no exceptions. The first two nights, I had to go out to the other room because he cried for a while with my husband (maybe 15-20 minutes). But after 3-4 nights, my husband could often just say, "Lay down, go night night," and he would.
We've been doing this for 2 weeks now and he's sleeping in the bed by himself until 4am (from about 7pm) and only waking 0-1 times. And I'm not waking at all. It's amazing. After 4am, he's been coming to our bed and nursing nonstop until about 5:30am, but I'm hoping to cut that soon.
I should also note that my husband had already been the one putting him to bed at night for about 2 months, so he was used to his comfort style.
We also have read and are talking about the book Nursies When the Sun Shines (you can buy it online - it's lovely).
Smart girl!
Follow Mothering