DS1 used to do this all the time. Once I went to visit a friend and her DS woke from a nap (quietly) and I said "Doesn't he cry when he wakes up?" When she and all the other mums said no I was totally baffled. I mumbled "but how do you know they are awake?"
I liked No Cry Sleep Solution because it seemed to me to be a middle ground that let me try to improve things without CIO that I didn't want to do and really didn't think would work with my DS's personality.
The shocking one for me was talking to a mom of a not-good-sleeper, who said something about crying and waking and stuff. To this point, we'd both thought our kids were pretty similar, that they both woke crying. But it became clear that by crying, she meant what I would have called "fussing" -- a short cry that resolves itself given 5 or 10 minutes. I never really did tell her that DS would cry himself sick on waking unless I was there within a couple of minutes. I did tell her "oh, no, I don't go if he's only crying like that." That was enough, I think, she didn't need to know the rest.
Do some people actually get the NCSS to work without serious crying? When we tried it, we ended up with 24/7 inconsolability really fast. He also cried for hours at bedtimes, getting so upset he had trouble latching on when offered a boob... which was completely uncharacteristic. I didn't find the actual content of NCSS to be distinct from Ferber, from the child's perspective.
The worst story I've ever heard about infant sleep was a friend of mine whose baby (I didn't know them at the time) actually did not sleep. He micronaped, for seconds at a time, but he never actually slept for longer than that. They not only survived, but managed to have a second, and the kid now sleeps "ok." Sleep is hard for everyone, even people whose kids sleep 16 hrs a day at 2.
Oh: and the crying on waking thing... apparently that's a marker for kids who will not cry to sleep/sleep train successfully. I think there are a lot more kids who can't be sleep-trained than people admit. The research I've seen suggests a LOT MORE, like maybe even more than half of all kids. I don't remember the numbers exactly.
I get a bit miserable talking about sleep, but I think it's really important for people to realize that sleep training doesn't always work, that it's hard for everyone, and that there really isn't a great method that's genuinely gentle. Babies should have more alloparents. That's the real solution. We got some very serious flack over admitting our difficulties, despite the fact that similar situations are actually quite common.
Blech. I get mad about this stuff. But I'm too tired of being mad to be actually mad, so now I'm just crabby.
-Mich
