I'm a new mom and still really unsure about which of the rules have to be strictly followed and when it's okay to let baby dictate his own schedule. At the hospital, they told me that baby needed to eat about two ounces every two to three hours. Since birth, though, our little guy has preferred to sleep for longer stretches and, when he wakes up, to eat voraciously. It's next to impossible to wake him up to eat - we have tried getting him naked, tickling his feet, putting a cool washcloth on his face - if he's sleeping, he's sleeping.

He lost a bit too much weight in the hospital - he went from 9 lbs, 9oz at birth to 8 lbs, 9oz - so they made us supplement the breastfeeding with formula before we left. Baby is still having trouble latching on - though I'm still trying - so we are doing a combination of breast and formula feeding now. He was back up to 9 lbs at six days old, so I don't think he's starving.

But I'm still worried that he isn't sleeping and eating on the right schedule. Today he ate 3 oz of formula and nursed for a few minutes at 10:30, then he was basically sound asleep until 4:30. (I was able to wake him up enough for ten minutes of lazy nursing around 2.) Then he woke up, nursed for ten minutes, ate three ounces of formula and was still acting hungry, latched on and nursed for another fifteen minutes. He relaxed for half an hour, then started rooting and trying to nurse on DH and stuffing his hands in his mouth and screaming again, so we gave him another ounce and a half of formula and he calmed down.

So, uh... Is this normal? Is it okay? Or do we need to try even harder to get him on an every-two-hours schedule?