Dropping a Feeding

After waiting a while to see if Harper was ready to go to a four hour schedule, I decided to drop her "dream feed" first while also lengthening the time between feedings. She did start to go a little longer in the morning (perhaps a dark sheet I drape over the bassinet helped a little?) and I figured I would just try moving the dream feed back a little at a time and see if it affected her morning wake-up at all. I moved her feeding from 10:30pm back to 10 and then 9:30 and then 9pm. It really didn't change the time she woke up in the morning, so I figured she was ready. So, here it is:

Previous Schedule	Current Schedule (at 4 1/2 months)
7am	7am -breastfeed & pump extra for her evening bottle
10am	10:30am
1pm	2/2:30pm
4pm	5:30pm -she sleeps well at this time but I didn't want to feed her at 6pm when I'm trying to get dinner ready
7pm- bottle;8:30-pump	8:30pm- bottle
10pm	9pm- pump

Part of what pushed me to switch was that I found it was getting harder and harder to squeeze in that sixth feeding. She continues to stay awake for an hour and a half, sometimes a little more. So, over the day, each feeding would get pushed a little later until I was feeding her the bottle at 7:30pm or even 8pm and then again only a couple hours later. I was staying up too late to try to make time between those last two feedings. Also, I didn't think Harper could make it four hours between every feeding and, for convenience, I didn't want feedings to fall at certain times. So, this is where I landed.

The downside of the new schedule is a much smaller window of opportunity for my own nap. Sigh. It was bound to happen. If I'm lucky I can still squeak in a 15-30 minute nap if Z goes down early and Harper doesn't wake up right at 2pm. Oh well, all the more reason for me to go to bed early...like now.