EASY (baby whisperer) - but what if needs more Eats than Sleeps?

[stinkypants]

Was using EASY fairly well but now that he can stay awake longer, he is needing another feed before he needs a sleep - so can you do EAEAS?? or should i by now be lengthening the gap between feeds? Or does anyone do ESAESA?? am struggling to know whether he really needs a sleep between every feed.
he is 12 wks old, breast fed, currently feeding every 2 hours sometimes 2 and a half.
trouble is if i try to get him down, eg after first feed and activity of the day, he will just scream for an hour by which time its next feed time.
thank you for any ideas on this.

We found 6.30/7am wake up, back to sleep around 9am (in buggy so i could get out), then back to sleep around 1pm (usually in cot) and a final little nap around 5/5.30pm worked really well for us, with feeds whenever he needed, ie-just woken up or just before sleep. Then around 8pm we did bath, story and last feed, in bed by 9pm in sleeping bag. Our son had reflux and colic but this worked well for us. Later found the book healthy sleep habits, healthy child. It basically says Gina Ford/ baby whisperer is crap, and the only thing that should be structured is checking they sleep enough. Oh, and babies can't learn routine till they're 4 months or so. Fab book, I really recommend (still using it for our 2 year old-harsh for toddlers, but really works!)

lol, i am with charliegal. currently accidentally parenting breastfeeding a 4yo and a 7 mo old to sleep.

brilliant. lovely to hear. am feeling inspired.

EASY doesn't work with breastfed babies. In fact it can be damaging to your supply so bin it until your baby finds their own routine (they will, it just might not be the one you were hoping for, but I promise life will get easier once they get a bit more predictable!)Hang in there

I so strongly agree with clemette, if your baby is BF this could actively damage your ability to continue to feed her. Everyone I know who tried EASY when BFing dumped the BFing after about six weeks because the baby wasn't following the EASY routine (but did on a bottle).

am a lot happier about the feeding - got weigh in soon so very interested to see if he has now gained the weight he should've done. am still very sure he's not getting enough daytime sleep though and so nervous about trying any 'sleep training' now as i know he'll scream the house down.
not sure if i should start a new thread on this or just say this here, but i am really beginning to think 'Ferber' techinique is actually KINDER than controlled crying or pick up / put down.
my reasons are that when i am pu/pd repeatedly he gets so excited to be rescued but then is 'hurt' over and over by me putting him down. plus all that disturbance prevents him getting to sleep.
with controlled crying the same applies really - each time you go in, surely he's thinking, oh at last... only to be disappointed. and then he might just remember that you DID eventually come, so it prolongs the agony.
with leaving him to cry it out completely, he has the space to get to sleep, plus he soon knows that it does no good - and he is not suffering by seeing you there ignoring him - not that they think that deeply but perhaps he'd prefer to not see you at all than to see you totally not rescuing.
pat/ssh also just makes my wee one worse.
so am thinking its going to have to be leave him to it - NOT an easy option at all - i hate every millisecond of it and often cry with him - but i just want to do the least prolonged and most independence-giving method. if rocking him to sleep worked at all i'd do that. he can't handle the stimulation.
any thoughts?

Feed him to sleep. Works like a dream and it is much easier to "train" him when he is older. Both of mine have been fed to sleep and are happily independent.

Stinkypants - I think PU/PD is too much for babies of this age (and I think the BW does not recommend it until after 6 months, read that somewhere). It certainly would have driven my DD mad. And so did rocking, singing, all of that stuff that people try to get their babies to sleep. Overstimulation was definitely the enemy!

So the only thing that worked for DD (cos feeding to sleep was not failsafe either) was to put her in her cot, in the dark, pat her tum gently and say "shhh" over and over until she gave in struggling and settled. Alternatively sometimes she did just like to yell for a bit (no more than 5 mins) to sort of wind down. I concluded after a while that some babies just do. These days she is nearly three and sings herself to sleep instead.

babies cant be independent. Please dont leave your baby to cry, it's cruel.

Agree with clemette & MrsHappy. If it works feed him to sleep. At this age do whatever works and don't leave him to cry, especially under 6 months.
The only sleep training we introduced for our DS at 3 months was a bath and bed routine. Since 6 months we have been trying to get him to self-settle (works sometimes).
One of my baby books said not to worry if you don't seem to be doing very well with getting your baby to sleep, (and to sleep through), as it is one of the most difficult things to achieve and I found that helpful.

Hi stinkypants - haven't read the whole thread. I very loosely followed baby whisperer with my DD (5 months today) - in that I feed her when she wakes up and then as soon as she gets tired (only now - at 21 weeks can she go for 2 hours between sleeps) she goes for a sleep (or sleeps in the buggy, or the car). The key thing I took from BW was to try not to feed her to sleep for every nap (although she's fed to sleep at bedtime), and I also try not to keep her up longer than 2 hours. For ages and ages she could only go about 90 minutes between sleeps. I sort of reset from when she wakes up and take it from there - IYSWIM? The other thing is that she is not a 3 hourly feeder - never has been. Some days she feeds every 2 hours - sometimes 2 and a half. It really does shift all over the place the whole time. And I don't try and stretch her out between feeds - I think that will come...

But - when she was very little - I thought she was hungry before her next sleep, but actually the suckling was how she got to sleep - so we introduced a dummy which worked brilliantly for 4 weeks or so until it started dropping out and she needed it put back in every hour/hour and a half a night. So at 13 weeks we went cold turkey with the dummy (lots of carrying, stroking and holding hands for the first couple of nights and nap times) - but she now self-settles. BUT - massive caveat -I do think some babies can self-settle and some take longer to learn. To be honest - after this incredible ramble (very sorry!) take all the books with a pinch of salt and go with what feels right. It's only now that I'm really starting to trust my instincts.

Thank you - really helpful advice. Have had a really difficult time of it lately because he is such an insomniac - nothing we do helps him to sleep, only serves to aggravate him because he is quite easily overstimulated - so i am just muddling along really and hoping that we get there eventually. i know it is early days still. he is beginning to self-settle with some reassurance and his thumb so am hoping this will continue to improve. he would be attached to my nipple 24/7 if he could!!!