Phase 1: Stop Early Wake-Up - Report

Boy, this is a rough one.
Day 1: Harper cried an hour and 5 minutes
Day 2: She woke up even earlier than the day before and cried for an hour and ten minutes and then I decided to feed her.
Day 3 (this morning): She woke up at 5:22am and cried for about 52 minutes and then was quiet for 15 minutes and then awake again. I fed her at that point which was around 6:30am.

Last night, I even gave her an extra feeding at 9:30pm because her feeding before that was at 6:45pm. Since she's waking up early, it's hard to get her back to the 7pm feeding. She goes 4 hours between each feeding, but I can't push her much past 7pm. I was letting her go longer when she would so that her last feeding of the night would be as late as possible. I have now decided to stick to four hours and then add one more feeding around 9pm or so to help with the early mornings. This makes it less stressful during the day since I don't have to push her longer at each feeding. I was feeling like the early wake-ups were just perpetuating the early wake-ups.

It felt a little like a step backward to feed her the dream feed again, but I know it's the right thing to do for now. I remember now that Z was almost 7 months when I dropped the dream feed with him but he had already been doing the 4 hour schedule. He was also already eating solids by that point. I did it in a different order for Harper, dropping the dream feed and then switching to four hours. This is the first time she has had the four hour schedule and the dream feed, so we'll see how it goes.

This whole thing reminds me how important it is to really listen to your baby and not get too caught up in "the right" way to do things. Giving her the extra feeding will set her up for success with the early morning wake-up. So, I'll keep plugging away with the crying in the morning. It will be worth it. It will be worth it.

P.S. As a relevant side-note, lest you imagine I'm handling this all with confidence and courage, I've cried every day this week. Lots. I'm really missing the sleep and feeling overwhelmed (not just with this but with other stuff too). Just want to keep the honesty in Routine Honesty. Being a Mom is hard (understatement of the year).