Help!

Moms and dads, we need your advice. Here's the background info:

Isaac does really well for naps (most of the time) these days. He takes 3 or 4 one hour naps every day. He rarely cries when I put him down and wakes up smiling. Here's his daily schedule: he wakes up between 7:30 and 8, takes his first nap around 9, his second around noon, his third around 3 and sometimes takes a fourth nap around 5. Lately the last nap has been shorter and I think he could probably do without it. His awake times are between 1 1/2 to 2 hours long.

About 2 1/2 weeks ago, Isaac started really giving us a run for our money at bedtime. Many people recommended Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child, and up until now, it has been incredibly helpful in teaching us how to get Isaac on a nap and bedtime schedule. The author indicates that at 4 months of age, when you put your baby to bed, you let him "cry it out" for as long as it takes for him to fall asleep. His philosophy is that if you go to your baby after x number of minutes, then he will learn to cry for x number of minutes to get you to come back. If he cries it out for a few days, then he will learn to go to bed without crying in the future.

We tried the Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child method of letting him cry it out for a little more than a week. It was horrible! (It is hard for me to write this because I know there are a lot of people who are going to think we're horrible parents for doing this method. But I feel like I need to be honest because for one thing, I want some honest advice, and for another thing, I want other moms (and dads) who also struggle to be able to be honest, too.) Anyway, here's the confession: on a couple of nights Isaac cried for TWO HOURS. Other nights he cried for an hour, half an hour, and on a couple of occasions, not at all. It was totally random.

So far when I've asked for advice from people they ask, "Do you have a bedtime routine?" and "What time are you putting him down?" We do have a bedtime routine. Last week we tried the following every night: after his last nap, we'd all eat dinner, go for a walk and play outside, give him a bath, put his jammies on, read him a book or two, listen to his lullaby CD, feed him again, and put him to bed. We would do all of this so that he ended up in bed approximately 2 hours after he had woken up from his last nap, so that would usually be around 7:30 or so. When we put him down, it really seemed as if he was tired. He would always be OK for about 10 minutes, and then he would just start screaming.

When I went to Isaac's four month check up last week, I asked the doc what he thought of letting him cry it out at bedtime. "I don't want you to do that," he said. "Letting him cry for 5 or 10 minutes is OK, but an hour? no." I wanted to cry. I felt like a horrible mom. I also felt a small sense of relief, though, because I had a reason to stop letting Isaac cry every night.

But now I feel like we've taken a step backwards. I don't know what we're supposed to do. We decided tonight that we should try to put Isaac to bed later, so Zach waited two and half hours before putting him down. That was around 8:00. He seemed really sleepy while getting his bottle (I was at class), but then started crying when Zach put him down to sleep. Zach went in after 10 minutes and shushed and patted him, and he was wide awake and playful with his daddy. Minutes after Zach left the room, he was crying again. He continued in this pattern of crying for 10 minutes and then calming down for Zach for over an hour! He finally fell asleep the last time Zach shushed him, which was after NINE o'clock!

The last few days have been similar, although tonight is the first night we've tried not picking him up. Listening to your baby cry is incredibly difficult and draining, especially when you're not totally convinced it's the right thing to do. One night I broke down sobbing and told Zach, "I don't want to be the mom! I don't know what to do! How am I supposed to know?" It's so hard because Isaac is a human being--there's no one right answer for him, let alone for all babies. But if you have any suggestions, by all means, send them our way. Lord knows we need 'em.