Just wanted to check in briefly and reply to Ali.
Quick summary of the past few days:
Generally, things have not been so hot. There have been nights where DD woke several times before bedtime and 1am, then slept well until her morning feeding and other nights where there were just multiple wakings.
Naps have been a mixed bag as well. DD woke up about and hour and a half early this morning and I couldn't get her back down, so we had 2h of activity, after which she was clearly ready for a nap. She went down easily and slept for 1.5h with no intervention. (Hooray!) Then, after a feed and 2h20m of activity she was ready to sleep...in my arms...most assuredly not in the crib. I held her until she was asleep 3 times and tried to put her down as gently as possible but to no avail. (Boo.) Gave up on that one. She's playing with grandma now.
Yesterday, though, after a particularly hard night, I decided to try to actually use pu/pd to get DD to sleep for her second nap. It was an unmitigated disaster. She made screams I have never heard her make before and eventually became so worked up that she didn't fully calm for 20-30 minutes. I think I can say it's the single worst experience I've had with her thus far in her life. I felt angry, I felt incredibly guilty and pretty darn hopeless.
Anyway, on to Ali.
DD is breast fed and drinks expressed milk at home with me during the day. Before we were doing EASY, she would drink heartily as she was going down for a nap, occasionally draining as much as a 6oz bag in a single go. (I should add that she's 90th percentile for weight.) When we began EASY, she would drink significantly less when she woke up, but still ate pretty well. Lately, though, she'll show little interest in the bottle at all until noon or after. After that, though, she'll usually drink pretty well, but rarely more than 3oz at a go.
I'm not at all dogmatic about when she eats. I'd love to do EASY proper, but if she doesn't eat when she wakes or eats very little, I'll generally re-offer the bottle every 30-45 min until her next nap. She still eats better just before naps than at other times though I've been trying not to nurse her to sleep for fear of further instilling that crutch to a baby who's already not a great sleeper.
No worries about weaning, we hope to BF for the first year. We've recently introduced some solids but she's not super keen on them. She does get to nurse basically all she wants once Mom gets home (Mom started back to work just over 3mos ago), and we aim for her to have two night feedings--one at about 1am and the other at 5:30am. Again, we're flexible, so if she wakes ~30min on either side of those times Mom will usually get up and feed her. If it's ~30+minutes from those, I'll try to sooth her back to sleep. If she won't sleep with me, Mom comes in and feeds her. Basically, we never deny her food, but we're aiming for roughly the schedule that Tracy suggests. In our case that means:
5:30am Nurse, then back to sleep until
8:30am Wake and Eat
~11am Nap
12:30 Wake and Eat
3:00 Nap
4:30 Wake. (We get flexible here depending on how soon Mom will be home. If she's going to make it by 4:45 she'll nurse with Mom, otherwise I'll offer the bottle)
She'll cluster feed in the evening and go to bed at
8:30pm Sleep
~1:00am Eat
I know it's a bit weird, but Mom appreciates the time with her before work and I appreciate the fact that she generally sleeps easily until 8:30.
Hope this helps! Thank you for your insights.