Cry it out? or Answer to every cry? What do you think?

  I thought I would give you all an update on how things have been going with Huxley and our sleeping routine. So far things are going betterr, we still have a long ways to go but they are definately better. He is sleeping in his bassinet at night and during naps so that is a huge improvement. He is doing good with sleeping 5 or 6 hours straight but then after I feed him and get him back down he thinks w/i the next 45 minutes to hour he needs to wake up to play which is cute and all but not so fun at 4 or 5 in the morning. So after reading Dr. Weissbluth's book Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child  we decided that we would let him "cry it out" so he would learn to self- soothe himself back to sleep and not reinforce 4am play time. It wasn't too bad, he woke up at 2:30am to eat then fell asleep quick and was back in the bassinet by 3am then at 3:50am he started fussing a little, we ignored him after 10 min he calmed down for a few minutes then started crying again never getting too worked up but definatley not really happy. After another 20 minutes I decided to do a quick diaper change just to make sure that wasn't the problem. I didn't make eye contact or talk to him it was all business, he tried to get my attention by smiling and cooing so I knew he just wanted to play. I hugged him, gave him a kiss, told him I loved him and put him down to cry some more. Finally at 4:55am I fed him again while still in the bassinet and afterwards pure silence, he was out until 7:30am when he woke up happy and rested like nothing happened. I knew this was the key to teaching him how to sleep better. I know some don't agree with this strategy and think it is cruel or heartless but it really seemed to work and he actually for the first time fell asleep in his bassinet and stayed asleep w/o needing to be rocked and shushed. So I am going to continue to follow this strategy to help Huxley learn to sleep better and to get the rest he needs. This morning I started to rock him and soothe him to put him down for his morning nap but he was fighting it so I put him down and let him cry for about 10 minutes then picked him up consoled him, rocked him for a couple minutes and then put him down while he was drowsy but not fully deep asleep he layed there for about 5 or 10 minutes then cried for about 30 seconds and was out. This was a great improvement b/c usually we go through a struggle of holding and rocking util he is asleep, putting him down then he wakes up and I do it again and we do this about 3 or 4 times. One quick last thing I want to say before any one judges this method is please do some research b/c there are many child Psychologists that say it does not harm your child in any way to let them cry so they learn to self-soothe themselves to sleep, however with that said never allow your baby to cry when sick, soiled, hungry, or for extreme prolonged amounts of time. I judge by his cry how serious things are and then decide when enough is enough. So I hope this works for us, let me know what you think? What did/do you do to help your kids go to sleep and stay asleep? Have any of you tried the "cry it out" method?