HOOORAY for 8 hours of sleep!!! do you feel like a new woman today? Did you get your shower in? FWIW, I think you're doing a fantastic job! sorry if this is a quick post, Abby's gonna wake up any minute, and I don't want to leave you hanging....
falling asleep w/o shh/pat - don't worry about it, as long as it's not every nap, no worries (you just need a break sometimes, and sometimes, it's not possible - at church etc.) Be consistent as much as you can and don't worry about the other times
df - we weaned Abby from hers around 7 mos - once solids were well established. As your ds goes down easier, and his bedtime moves earlier, you could add in a df easily enough around 10/10:30. I bf Abby, but dh gave a bottle of ebm at the df, it was just easier.
first nap - usually is the easiest when they are little, mainly because it's like an extension of night sleep - that was the first nap Abby was able to do completely on her own, so if he's getting the hang of it, YEAH!! You can even try backing off a bit more each day on the shh/patting and see if he can do it on his own.
bath - we don't bathe her every night (mostly because dh is often out to mtg in the evenings, and I don't want to do it by myself), but when we do, we do it right before her last feed of the night - a bit like it's part of the wind down. When I was cluster feeding, the bath was kind of in between the 2 cluster feeds - so if she was on 3 hr EASY, it was eat: 7, 10, 1, 4, 6 (bath, wind down) 7:30 to bed - sometimes it was a bit long on the A time there, so we'd experiment with different times, maybe do 4, 6:30, 7:30 - the 7:30 was more like a top off at that point. Once she transitioned to 3.5 hr EASY, I eliminated the cluster feeds, but still kept bath right before the last feed.
too much sleep - at his age, you do not need to worry about it!!! Later, too much night sleep can affect naps, but at his age, he really needs a lot of sleep. Here's a link with "average" sleep times, keep in mind, some babies need less, some need more:
sleep amountsnot waking at 3 hrs - remind me again - are you bf? If you are, I really would try to wake him, it will help keep your milk supply established. It's not as crucial if you're not. That said, if he takes too long of a nap, it does mess up the routine and may lead him to confusing his day and his night. I'd say if he's not up at the 3 hr mark, peak in on him, if he's really out, let him go another 30 min before you try again. With Abby, I'd let her go no more than 30 min past the 3 hr mark, then I'd get her up, and change her diaper, and that pretty much guaranteed she'd wake up.
waking early - what to do depends on how early he wakes - with Abby, if she had less than 30 min to go til the 3 hr mark, I'd either feed her or do some low key A time til the 3 hr mark and then feed her (but that does count towards total A time), if she had more than 30 min til the 3 hr mark and I didn't think she was hungry, I'd try shh/patting to get her back to sleep, but once it was close to the 3 hr mark, I'd feed her (but again count that time as part of her A time)
long naps - I wouldn't mess too much with the next A time (you're right - you don't want him to be OT), but you could try extending maybe 10 min, and see how he's doing those last 10 min, if he's showing his usual tired signs, forget extending and just put him down. Sometimes, especially during growth spurts, babies need more sleep, so sometimes he just might need a bit more. But if he seems ok during the extra 10 min, then keep that.
sorry this is so impersonal today...keep asking questions!!! That's how we figure things out!!! You are doing a great job!!!!!!!
