Need your advice on NW and EW

[Crabsmile]

Hello
My boy is 2mo.We are on a 3 hour easy cycle.At night he wakes up at 10-11 pm and 2 am and 5:30 am everyday. Each time we will feed him and he eat as usual. But when he was 1mo on a 4 hour cycle easy he can sleep for 4-6 hours at nights. And yesterday when I give him 30ml more formula at 11pm trying to extend his sleep, he still sleep for 3 hours and wake up at 2am.In Tracy's book, she mentioned, at night baby will hardly wake for food, they just wake as a habit. I am confused about this , how to know if he is really hungry instead of an instinct to suck and is it too early to drop the NF and how to help him not to wake up so early.

[Crabsmile]

Thanks. But these days after we feed him at 2am,he keeps awake and cry a lot, that I have to hold him and let him suck the nipple until the next feed. Anyone can share with me how to deal with this?

[~ Vik ~]

I just wanted to echo what Jane said, 3 night feeds in a lo this young is really quite normal!  We had a dream feed plus 2 other night feeds for quite some time (past 4mo if I remember right!). 

In Tracy's book, she mentioned, at night baby will hardly wake for food, they just wake as a habit.

A couple things about this...  From what I remember, this was really referring to older babies.  When babies are this young (especially breastfed babies) they truly do need to eat through the night.  It is when babies get older that babies can wake habitually for feeds (learned hunger) rather than actually needing the calories through the night.  Another thing is that breastfeeding knowledge and research has changed a lot since Tracy's untimely passing, and some of the recommendations in her book no longer jive with our current knowledge.  For example, breastfed babies generally can't do a 4h feeding routine until well past 4mo, sometimes not even until the introduction of solids.
Have you gotten a chance to read http://babywhispererforums.com/index.php?topic=98183.0 ?

Re: the crying at 2am, are you dealing with reflux at all?  Or possibly an ear infection?
With sucking the nipple, are you bottle feeding?  A paci might be better, with sucking on an empty bottle nipple a lot of air can be swallowed and cause painful gas which might be making things worse instead of better