Growth spurts: pure evil

Well, OK. I suppose they're good for something (e.g., the development of little Max). However, in terms of entertainment value for the parents, they are probably on par with an all-night cram session for a test. Except no junk food. And in Holly's case, no 6-pack of Red Bull.
Babies apparently go through growth spurts at 3 weeks, 6 weeks, 3 months and 6 months. The growth spurt itself is fine; it's the preparation for it that's really something else. In preparation for the spurt, babies overfeed like mad for a couple of days to get mom to up her milk supply so that the following feeds will be of particularly high volume.
Max's first prep session happened when he was about 17 days old. We weren't entirely sure if it was a sign of a growth spurt or not, as we had just altered his feeding routine in order to get past some weight gain difficulties. All we knew is that the books all said that the average for a baby his age was to feed between 8 and 12 times a day and all of a sudden, he was clocking in at 16 or so. It seems that emotions run a bit higher when people are deprived of quality sleep...someone should do a study on that.
Fortunately, like pretty much every other blip on the baby radar, it passed after 2-3 days. I say "2-3" because it was all a blur and I can't quite remember when it started, all I know is that it ended. One day we put him to bed in the early am and he stayed asleep for longer than an hour. I swear a chorus of angels could be heard.
I'm writing this post because Max is 5 weeks and 2 days old today and all signs point to a second spurt on the horizon. Over the last week, he has been sleeping through the night in nice blocks of 3 hours or so. Tonight, we seem to have regressed to hourly naps. However, now that we already have one of these sessions under our belt, we know that all we have to do is ride it out for a couple of days and we'll have a bigger, healthier boy to show for it. I'm thinking that's a good tradeoff:)