Well, after yesterday evening I decided to hang on to the binkie a little longer...
Again, we had the problem with her third long nap of the day...her 45-min mark was at 5:30pm, and she didn't want to go back to sleep, and was super cranky that evening. She did a 30min catnap, then we did our bedtime routine (including an extra bottle of ebm) and she went to sleep GREAT at 7:30pm. So...we thought we were sitting pretty...only she woke at her 45min mark - 8:15pm, and didn't fall asleep until 10:30pm!! Oh, I had a little bit of a meltdown last night...I don't do well with little sleep at all. What makes them do that??
The good part of it was she only woke up ONCE at 4am for a feeding. She slept until 7:30am, and really just wanted her binkie and go back to sleep. But I got her up...she wasn't happy about that. AND, she managed to stay awake 1hr 45mins for her first A time!! After she got past her 1hr mark, she was great and so I just waited until she looked tired again. Then with a little break at her 45min nap mark, she made it to the 4hr mark...I had to wake her up...maybe she's already ready for 4hrs?? That suprised me a little bit. She did 1 hr 40mins for her second A time just fine. We'll see how this evening goes - cross your fingers. I definitely think the extra bottle could be a huge part of the solution, though! I noticed she slept from 4am on without her binkie, so maybe that's not as much of the problem as hunger is...