Listening to YOUR hair

So I will be 7 weeks post this Sunday and I am seriously woofing. Since stretching is so new for me I'll be the 1st to say it ain't easy!!! Learning to be creative with your styles, laying your hair down and keeping it that way. Not to mention fixing your hair for special events and occasions...My week is full with evening events and sad to say I'm thinking more about my hairstyles than what to wear. Not to mention the mission of battling new growth, being more gentle than usual to avoid breakage etc. Whew...so now that that's out I will tell you this, you can make things a whole lot easier on yourself if you pay attention to what your hair is telling you. That's right, listen to your hair. Keep using what works! If you want to try new products try incorporating them one at a time and try each one for a couple of weeks or tries (at the very least) b/4 you introduce a new product. If one is hurting your hair and one is helping how will you know which one to terminate from your regimen? I've learned a lot about what my hair likes over the past couple of months and stretches. Hair are some things that work for me at the end of my stretch aka the breaking point-lol:

1 - Decreasing my washes to a maximum of 2x/wk and only cowashing
2 - Moisturizing my "alopecia patch" 2x/day (for some reason at about 5 wks the hair in that spot gets extremely dry and brittle and requires extra moisture)
3 - At around the 6th week - upping my protein (light) treatments to 1x/wk at (prior I do them 1-2x/mo)
4 - Prepooing w/heat (I always prepoo but the heat really softens up that new growth)
5 - Using my hair steamer (let me tell you this is a real life saver - can you say softness?!)
6 - Decreasing the number of x's I oil my scalp w/castor oil (the less digging the less breakage).
7 - "laying down" my edges etc at night b/4 bed so when I repeat the process in the morn I get a much neater/sleeker look.
8 - Detangling b/4 my wash (I dont need to this step before 5-6 wks but it helps tremendously when you get to that point - oh and I let the detangler sit on for about 2 minutes, while I massage it in before I start the detangling process. It really loosens up the hairs this way)

That's all I can think of right now but I'm sure I'll start noticing even more things that work as I continue on my journey. Hope some of this helps at least 1 of you but also remember everything that works for me may not work for you. So again. Listen to YOUR hair because it's definitely talking to you!