Baby never used to cry from hunger, how to make EASY easier?

[tall]

This is more a behavioral question than routine.

We've been implementing EASY for a couple of weeks now. My son just turned 12weeks, and so far, since coming out of on demand feeding, we have been having EASY periods of 2h to 3.5h during the day (amazing how this worked so well, since he had been feeding every hour or so). When he wakes up at 2h, I usually try to sush him back to sleep for half an hour, to get at least 2.5h in a cycle. I'm okay with all of this for now, and will try to start lengthening the cycles now that he's reaching 3mo.

My problem: he used to be a really gentle baby in what concerns hunger. He always cried of overstimulation and overtiredness, but rarely of hunger. Of course, I would also offer the boob all the time I saw his cues. Anyway, now he has become a little monster when he wakes up. If I take more than a couple of minutes to feed him, he shrieks! Even as I'm unbuttoning my shirt with him on my lap.

Honestly, this actually made me doubt the EASY correlations. Tracy didn't want children associating eating with sleeping, but in some cultures people actually sleep after eating... Now I have a child that is screaming unless he is fed immediately after waking. How to solve this before he starts eating solids and I'll need to take the time to actually prepare his breakfast?

[*Ali*]

Hello, and welcome to the boards.

Maybe he is getting too hungry? Crying for food is actually a late sign of hunger. I wouldn't let him go more than 3hrs between feeds at this age. If he is awake for quite a while before sleeping then you may wish to top him up before you put him to sleep so he isn't so ravenous when he wakes. You could always try offering the second Breast half an hour after the first if you don't want to feed too close to sleep. Breast fed babies tend to need more feeds than their formula fed counterparts.

I'm sure things will get easier as he gets older and he won't cry for solids like this. He'll probably be at least one year by the time you start feeling him solids without a milk feed first anyway. Try not to worry. They change so quickly in the early days.

[tall]

Thank you, Ali! It's good to be here (though it would probably be better if I had never felt the need?)

I'm not sure it's a hunger cry, because he doesn't give out any hunger signs before the shriek. It sounds to me more like "I know it's food time, where's the food! Don't you try to fool me by sitting me in the chair! It's food time, not play time!", but I might be projecting just a little bit.

Does this happen? I know one day we had to travel and I tried to keep him up longer than the EASY routine we had for 5 days, but not longer than what he used to be up after a nap (and was overtired all the time). He started crying histerically about 10 minutes past the usual activity time (1h30 after waking up), so we put him to bed, he slept really quickly.

I'll investigate if the shrieks come only after the longer naps and either cut them short or try EAEASY. Right now he's usually awake for 1h15 to 1h45 when he shows signs of tiredness (though sometimes I still miss them), and naps between 30 minutes (on a bad nap) to 2h30 (I kept going into his room to see if everything was fine - he was recovering from the flu so I thought I'd let him sleep). Usually between 1h15 to 2h, though, if he makes it past the 40 minute cycle change.

[*Ali*]

I expect he will probably grow out of it then. My DD used to wake up crying lots but now she wakes up cooing even 11-12hrs after her last feed.