He's making this way too easy

I've known since before Noah was born that I wanted to do a much better job with him on helping him learn "self soothing" skills (as in how well he can fall asleep on his own). Erin never did too well, but with her being the first child, I was able to give her more of my time holding and rocking her to sleep.

Noah's recent routine for naps and bedtime has been for me to put him down wide awake when he's tired, give him a few minutes of crying and then go in and rock him. It usually just takes a minute for him to calm down and close his eyes. Then I can put him down and he'll drift off no problem.

I think he's old enough now to be able to do it all on his own. I'm also looking at putting him on a more predictable nap schedule which I hope will also help him to nap longer (I'm still getting only 30 to 45 minutes out of him).

With Erin, we used the Ferber method (which is going in at increasingly longer intervals - without picking them up - until they fall asleep). With Noah I'm going to go with Weissbluth's method which is a little more harsh. For naps you let them cry for up to an hour before getting them back up, and bedtime you let them cry with no limit. I know some parents are against letting a baby cry for extended periods of time, but I think it's important for a baby to fall asleep unassisted, and if it takes a few days of crying, then so be it. Everyone will be happier after that.

So....we started Thursday with bedtime. I did his routine and put him down. Never heard a peep out of him (occasionally he will fall asleep very easily on his own if he's put down at the perfect time). He slept till 5am, took a bottle and went back to sleep.

(I didn't let him cry for his naps on Friday because we needed to be somewhere and I didn't have the time to wait for him to fall asleep)

Last night I did his routine and put him down. He cried softly for about 5 minutes and then didn't hear from him again till much later.

His first nap this morning, he cried hard for 20 minutes and then abruptly stopped.

I'm thinking he's going to be okay :)