To CIO or not to CIO?

CIO, for those not familiar with the acronym is the method behind letting a baby "cry it out" in order to sleep without the aid of parents, such as rocking, walking, co-sleeping, etc.

If you ask a mom that has more than one kid, or very busy parents what they think of the method, they will tell you that kids need to cry to learn the independence of self soothing to sleep. They will tell you that this is for their best. They will also say that their lives became peachy perfect once they mastered this baby torture and the gremlin got tamed into sleepy heaven.

If you ask a first time mom, a person without kids, or tree huggers, they will say the baby will lose trust in his caregiver and the world will become a bleak and dark place to live. They will claim that the kids that shot a bunch of people in the school were children of CIO. They will say that Mary would never let Jesus cry it out (but I wonder if she spared the rod). They will say you're an evil person and deserve to die!

(I wonder if Mary had her days, though, and also ate cookies in frustration while crying by herself)

I'm somewhere in the middle, in that I am a first time mom and I like to hug trees. I want everybody to get along and no one to suffer, but I also like to do other stuff besides holding a baby all day, especially when he is wiggly and will open tiny eyes as soon as I place his sleepy butt in the crib.

This, after 15 minutes of rocking and restarting again, when you need to pee, or are hungry, can get old really fast.

So I tried getting baby to sleep on his own. I rocked him a bit, got him drowsy and placed him in the crib.

Tiny eyes opened wide and crying commenced almost immediately. Usually sucker momma would pick him up again. Tough momma just shushed him this time and walked away. Baby became gremlin. Even though I checked on him every five minutes, he threw up, he rolled over, he screamed, he reached out and punched me on the face.

This went on for thirty minutes, until I started crying. Then, only then, he stopped, gave me that look that said, wtf, mom, I'm the baby, not you.

Once I picked him up he caressed my face and smiled. How can I ever let this baby cry it out again?

We had a glitch in that he did sleep on his own today, but I'm not sure if it was something I did.

Any takers?