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I don’t think there’s a magic answer here. You have to do what is right for your family. I co-slept with my son (now 13 mos) until 10.5months. I finally got him napping in his own bed on a regular schedule and decided to go for it. The first night, I put him down at 8, he cried for a while at 11pm, but slept until 7am! I was shocked! He went from waking up every few hours to nurse, to not nursing for 11 hours! Now he sleeps from 7-5 and then he and I go in the guest room to nurse and sleep until 7. Every now and then he needs a night nurse, like when he’s teething, but overall he’s doing great! I would say, discuss it with your partner and do what you feel’s best. Remember, if it doesn’t work tonight, there’s always tomorrow!

Abby is a pretty good sleeper. At this point, when it’s bedtime, I put her in her sleepsack, give her a bottle, snuggle a little bit with her and “doggie,” and then lay her down in the crib. 95% of the time I don’t hear a peep from her, or she talks herself to sleep. If she wakes up in the night and cries, I wait for a minute or two to see if she will settle herself back down. If not, I go in and give her a bottle. At this point, she is typically still waking up once a night, sometimes more, sometimes not at all. I absolutely cannot do cry it out…for longer than about 10 minutes. I agree that parents should do whatever works best for them and their children to get enough sleep. Nursing babies seem to wake up more in my experience. Don’t beat yourself up about how your kids sleep…I am convinced that kids are hard wired a certain way, and you can try to mold them in a certain direction but it may or may not work. I know that with my first, it was infuriating for me to hear people say “you’re just not trying long enough, she’ll figure it out.”

I’m with you on the most sleep for the most folks strategy, and also with not trying to fight with who my baby really is.
I find your questions about being able to tell which 5 year old was allowed to cry it out to be a bit frustrating. Just because a kid “turns out ok” doesn’t mean that all of our parenting choices were ok. It’s not only about who they become, but who they are now. I just don’t think that CIO is developmentally appropriate. Our babies can’t understand that we’re in the next room and that we still care about them and that this is “for their own good” (because how will they ever sleep through the night for the next 94 years of their lives if we don’t teach them to do it by the time they’re 4 months old?) All they understand is that they’re all alone and very unhappy. Our first job is to teach them to trust us, and CIO does not encourage trust. I wish our society would lose that attitude that it’s all about the outcome (And what is the outcome? When do we stop parenting and say “Product complete!”?). I’d like our society to concentrate on being the parent that our 3 month old needs or that our 45 year old child needs.

We used Weissbluth’s method at around 8 months as well, not just because we were out of our minds from sleep deprivation (which we were!) but we could tell that our son needed more sleep. We couldn’t believe the difference in his daytime temperament once he was sleeping 11-12 hours per night. But I think this goes back to doing what’s right for your family and your child, because it seems like some babies just don’t need as much sleep or are not as affected by brief night wakings / feedings as others. Ours just happened to be one of those sleep monsters who really needed a large chunk of uninterrupted sleep at night to be his bright, happy self during the day.

@Natalie B- FYI, I am totally on your team with this one, regarding CIO, which is why I’ve been so conflicted about it for so long. I understand your frustrations with my 5YO comparison, but what I was trying to say was that people can be so judgemental during this whole baby phase and then once it’s over, it’s as if it never existed and no one points the finger at the way your got your baby to sleep at night as a reason for all his problems (at least I don’t think so, but I haven’t been there yet, so I don’t know).