re: "Crying it out" with an infant - OT Parents, how was your first experience?

I have not read all the post (this maybe German), but here ars a few things to consider:

1. If your child is falling asleep in your arms while you are rocking him... that is the only way he knows how to sleep. So if he wakes himself up in the night, of course he is going to cry, because he cannot go back to sleep unless he is being held and rocked. (Many of us may experience the same issue, we have difficulty sleeping in a hotel bed because we are so used to our own bed.)

So what you need is to change the way he falls asleep, you can hold and rock him, until he is just about to fall asleep, then put him down in the crib (on his back!), rub his tummy until he falls asleep in his crib by himself. So when he wakes up in the middle of the night, he can comfort himself back to sleep.

2. Once you do the above, you want to see if he can fall asleep by himself. Let him cry! If this is tough for you, set a specific time limit before you run to his room... Like 10-15 minutes, when you are just listening to him cry 1 minute may seem like 10, but if you have an objective time, it'll make the wait much easier.

3. Studies after studies have shown that a baby cannot hurt himself from just crying... duh.

So ask yourself 'what is the worse thing that could happen':

If you let him cry... He gets snotty and maybe a little hoarse?

If you keep trying to comfort and hold him every time he cries... you are going to reinforce his behavior and the crying will continue... longer and longer... louder and louder...

Hope this helps...