Growth Spurt? 3 mo old, Custer feeding for 2 weeks

[happy.cloth.momma]

Hi! I'm a FTM with a baby boy. My baby is 15 weeks old and has been on the E.A.S.Y. schedule of eating every 3 hours since day one. We LOVE it and I now gift this book to new mom friends. He started sleeping 7 hours at night at about 2 weeks old (EDIT: I checked my logs and has misremembered this. He started sleeping through the night around 6 weeks old). He has gone through growth spurts before where he's eating every 2 hours instead of every 3, but those have typically only lasted 2-3 days at most and he continues to sleep 7 hours during the night.

My son has been eating every 2 hours for the last 12 days out of 14. (He went back to a normal 3 hour schedule for 2 days after 5 days of straight cluster feeding). I believe he actually is hungry because he eats for his usual 20 minutes at every feed. He also seems more remote and has been sleeping after each feeding for about 30-45 minutes. My questions:

1. Do growth spurts typically last this long?
2. Am I possibly mistaking hunger cries for teething pain? (He has been chewing on fingers and drooling a lot the past few weeks, but he's also been eating a full feed every 2 hrs)
3. Is he overtired? I've realized he only sleeps about 12 hours a day. He always woke up during the dream feed so we started keeping him awake after the 6pm feed, feeding again at 8, 10 and 11, then he sleeps from 11:30pm -6:30am.
4. Am I possibly creating any accidental parenting patterns?

Thanks in advance!

[Katet]

There is a big growth spurt around 3/4 months. I think one of mine took around 2 weeks.
It is quite early for teeth and the do get more saliva and drooling around 4mo even with no teeth, but teeth starting to move under the gums could be part of it.
You've been incredibly luck to have a baby following the clock so well and a long stretch so early, often with BF babies the feeds can be different lengths as milk supply tends to be lower later in the day and they need more feeds.
In many ways so much changes with children, lots you can't control, so it's often about learning to work with their changing needs rather than hoping, to keep them in a routine that doesn't totally follow biologically natural rhythms.
That's kind of the problem really books create this dream ideal and at the other end is nature and generally babies patterns fall between.

[happy.cloth.momma]

Katet, thank you so very much for your reply and encouragement. It's good to know that this big growth spurt isn't uncommon- it's at least happened to one other momma!

I agree that I've been lucky- my boy is pretty much a textbook baby, except for a proper bedtime. (I've had a few people remark that 11pm is pretty late for putting baby down. It probably is but I found he woke up in the middle of the night when I put him down earlier and would wake for the dream feed anyway.)

I'll just settle in and wait this growth spurt out. May try to lay him down earlier for bed once he's back to his usual feeding rhythm. Thanks for your help!