We started kind of sleep training last week. We're planning on moving him into his crib in his own room in a few weeks, and I'm trying to break his habit of being nursed to sleep/only napping in my arms. He's too light of a sleeper for me to set him down after he's already asleep.

So we've been doing it about a week. We don't really have a set method. We tried CIO but he screaming bloody murder and got more worked up whenever we went in to comfort him at the intervals, so I set an arbitrary time limit of 15 minutes. I'll let him cry for up to 15 minutes before we go in and check on him. If he seems like he's tapering off--more of a really tired but just fighting sleep and losing cry--I'll let him go longer. If it's a really angry, hysterical, not tapering off at all cry I'll go in sooner.

When I do go back in I'll bring him into bed and nurse him for a few minutes until he's calm and drowsy, and then try again (with another 15 minutes of crying).

So far he's averaged 9 minutes of crying before falling asleep. One time he went over 15 minutes, but it was a really exhausted cry, and he was passed out by 18 minutes. One time I went in and got him at 12 minutes because it was an ear-piercing scream.

I've also been doing this for naps, and he's never gone more than 10 minutes before falling asleep. Today it was only about 2 minutes of light, barely crying.

Last night he only cried for a minute before he fell asleep. Usually he'll sleep in the PnP the first half of the night, and then after he wakes up to feed I'll just bring him into bed with us for the rest of the night. When he woke up to be fed last night (thank god, my boobs were about to explode), I brought him into bed as usual and fed him, but he didn't fall back asleep like normal. He struggled and arched his back and fussed until I finally put him back in the PnP. He was asleep within a minute.

Anyway, just wanted to share my experience with sleep training so far. We've gone with what felt best (even though I HATE listening to him cry, and sometimes cry myself) and what's worked for Evan. More than CIO and less than extinction, but it seems to be working. We still have a ways to go, but I'm feeling better about it all (and he's sleeping better and longer and I sometimes get my hands free!)