Sleep (or lack thereof)

I have gone all Weissbluth on my baby again, opting to lovingly let him cry it out in the name of healthy sleep. For those unfamiliar: Dr. Weissbluth suggests putting your baby down at night, after soothing and stories and baths and snuggles, and leaving him there regardless of how long he might cry so that he learns to fall asleep on his own. I'm sure there are people out there who are aghast at the thought - I was, back when Bella was an infant, until she hit 12 months, and then I became a huge fan of the method. You have to be dedicated, and it really sucks sometimes, but it works.

Bubba has been a pretty bad sleeper from the get go, and I had been entertaining the notion of letting him cry it out for a while, but I had one really bad night (and I've had some pretty bad nights, so you know it had to be terrible) and it firmed up my resolve. Remember: formerly Bubba slept with me, and woke up twice during the night to eat and multiple, countless other times to fidget and cry and was restless and sometimes would wake up in the middle of the night and stay up for an hour or two and it was terrible and I was a zombie. Now Bubba takes a bath, and we snuggle and play a little and then I read him a story, give him lots of kisses, put him in his crib and close the door. He has a blue-tinted night light so he isn't in abject darkness. The results:

Saturday night: Went to bed at 8:30PM. Cried for fifteen minutes, then fell asleep. Slept through the night and awoke cheerily around 7AM Sunday morning. Hooray!
Sunday night: Went to bed at 8PM. Cried for thirty minutes, then fell asleep. Slept through the night and awoke cheerily at almost 8AM Monday morning. HOORAY!
Monday night: SIL's husband fed Bubba a entire sugar-free mocha-coffee flavored pudding cup. When confonted he said in his defense: "At least I scraped the coffee pudding layer off the top!" Oh, yes, because that makes it much better. Bubba spends his evening crying, throwing up and having terribly smelly things exploding out of his diaper. I call it a wash and just spent the night cleaning up all the fluids.
Tuesday night: Went to bed at 8PM. Cried for twenty minutes. Woke up at 5Am with a very snotty nose and stayed up, but that's OK - we all have allergies and I can sympathize.

So things are going along pretty smoothly. When I first did this with Bella she cried for two hours straight, so it could be so much worse. It's not the method for everyone, I know, but it has worked for my kids so far. He doesn't wake up emotionally scarred - he wakes up cooing and scooting around his crib, so I think he's alright.