Turning a Corner!!

It has been a rough week here, but things are turning around in a big way. After reading all the material on infant sleep (from the "no cry" Dr. Sears book, to the "some crying" Kim West book, to the "let cry" of Dr. Weissbluth) and I made up my own plan using all the knowledge that I gained. I liked the Kim West plan best on paper...she advocates putting a chair beside the bed while the baby goes to sleep. Every few days you move the chair further from the bed until you are out of the room. I really liked that one...Colin would cry, but I would be right beside him and he would know I was there. That is until I tried it in practice. Colin freaked out, and I mean freaked out, to see me sitting there right beside him but not picking him up. I tried for three days and he would stick him arms out of the bars and scream like you would not believe. I decided this method was torturing him, but it helped me see what would work. Dr. Weissbluth said that it was fine to keep using the soothing method that I had been using to put Colin down as long as I was consistent and did not pick Colin up every single time he cried during the night. This is where I was confused...I was walking, rocking, and singing Colin back to sleep each time he stirred during the night. The book said that I had basically trained him to do this. He had also still been eating once during the night and the way to tell if he needed that food was if he fell right back to sleep after he ate it. The answer to that was no...the feeding no longer put him back to sleep. He just kept crying and was always awake for an hour at least with each night waking. So last weekend I started to cut it all out. I have been rocking, walking, and singing him to sleep just like he loves, but I have not been responding to every single whimper he makes during the night. And it is working! For the past few nights, I would just listen to him every time he got up and he has gradually been going from all out screaming for me to lightly crying to little whimpers to no crying at all last night! He went to bed at 7pm, woke up screaming at 8pm (I had forgotten Motrin and immediately went to him and gave him some) and then he slept until 5:30am!!! Without waking up once!!! It has been a nightmarish few days, but I have been keeping a sleep log and you can clearly see the changes in the right direction. Dr. Weissbluth's preferred method is to put the child in their crib, shut the door, and not go back in the room until 6am. That doesn't work for us either, so I have really just modified everything into the plan that works best for us. So Colin still gets the rocking and loving to sleep that he enjoys, yet I am still teaching him to put himself back to sleep during the night. I am now also paying attention to what the cries actually sound like. When he started screaming last night about an hour after I put him down, I could hear the pain in the cry and could tell it was not just him stirring. I won't promise not to go to him in the night, but I can now see that if I just wait 10 minutes or so, he will go back to sleep on his own and does not need me most of the time. I used to run to him as soon as I heard a peep, thinking if I caught him soon enough, I could get him to stay asleep. What I had really been doing was waking him up at times when he was just stirring and would have naturally gone back to sleep!! I think what really helped me to move forward with this was all the reading about how important it was for Colin to get good sleep and that I had actually been harming him with all the picking up at night. He needed a lot more sleep than he was getting and I am helping him get it now, rather than hindering it. He is so happy today...he finally woke up smiling! His naps are still a complete disaster area...I guess he was taking such awesome naps before because he was getting horrible sleep at night. So now I am dealing wtih that, but it is okay. This is so hard on me...to embark on this mission when I am already so sleep deprived has not been easy, but I can see the light at the end of the tunnel.