DS is 7 weeks old. He is actually not a bad sleeper, but not a great sleeper either. I usually put him down awake for naps, and most of the time he will put himself to sleep, sometimes with minimal fussing or crying (2-3 minutes). Putting him to bed has become super stressful, though. Less than half the time, he'll put himself to sleep, after 15-45 minutes of grunting and mild fussing. We have a video monitor so we watch him, he just lays there and looks around during this time for the most part. Otherwise he screams his head off and eventually (sometimes 20-30 minutes later) DH or I will go in and get him. Sometimes he can be soothed by DH bouncing him, sometimes I end up nursing him to sleep if he's been awake a long time (2-3 hours). He sleeps 6-8 hours for the first stretch and 2-4 for 1 or 2 stretches after that, and when waking overnight he nurses and goes right back to sleep.

I would really like to get him to a consistent bedtime but right now most of his naps are 1 hour and hard to predict so we usually aim for a catnap in the evening and start bedtime nursing 45 min-1 hour after waking from catnap. After nursing I read him a book, give him a little massage, change his diaper, swaddle, sing songs, and put him down.

I was all set to nurse him to sleep (never had to do this with my first DS) but it does not work unless he is exhausted - even when he does fall asleep nursing, his eyes usually pop open when he is done. When we try to bounce or rock him to sleep in his swaddle, unless he is exhausted, he just squirms and grunts and acts unhappy and usually wakes up as soon as we put him down anyway. What do we do?? I'm ok with CIO, even though I know a lot of people believe this would be too young. I feel like either way he is going to fuss and either way we are teaching him how to fall asleep, and I'd rather teach him to do it on his own rather than train him to sleep in our arms (since he doesn't naturally do it easily). I haven't read No Cry Sleep Solution but from the reviews I read, it seems like its geared toward older babies - is this something I should pursue? I appreciate any advice! I was going to add a poll but I don't know what the choices even are - CIO vs train him to fall asleep in our arms vs train him to fall asleep nursing vs other? Help!