Sleep progress! (hope inside)

We have been working with varying degrees of dedication to improving DS's sleep for months (it's hard to give up what little sleep you get!), and had recently pretty much hit rock bottom with up every two hours again (in crib) and when he came to bed resettling would involve climbing back and forth over me and nursing, and usually sleeping across my chest (which was actually ok until he slept across my neck instead and I dreamed that I was wearing a suit of armor that was choking me and woke up gasping for air) and not sleeping well anyways.

We had been gearing up for a hard-core round of NCSS stuff- really working on not putting down asleep, so get almost asleep, put down, DS scream, repeat- when I read MrsEE's post where she described what she did (put down sleepy, keep laying down and soothing but not take out of crib, time limit of hour for night and half hour for nap, then do as usual).  We decided to try this first, because I thought we could stick with it much better because we'd leave night wakings the same at first, it should be quicker (things were getting really bad for me), and I hoped that some ability to get to sleep on his own would transfer over to night wakings naturally. 

First night, took 50 minutes to get to sleep after nursing, books, then crib.  The first half hour Leander thought that we were having fun, so he tried playing peek-a-boo, played with the seahorse and wandered around.  He had been dozing off while nursing and was tired, but he can get over being tired remarkably well.  After he figured out that we were serious, he got upset.  He cried for most of the last 20 minutes, but not screaming or totally out of control, then fell asleep after being set down.

Second night, 45 minutes, same deal.  Third night,  20 minutes, some crying.  Fourth, 25, a little fussing.  Fifth (last night), 30 some crying with a poop interruption.

He's been sleeping four or five hours the first stretch now, twoish next, and when he's in our bed he's been sleeping much better. The third night he woke up, moved around enough to turn his seahorse on and off a few times and made one noise then went back to sleep.  I almost cried.

Naps have been a bust with this method- he could hold out forever- but the past few days I've nursed him down and gotten the best crib naps we ever have- more than 2.5 hours yesterday (he's becoming a one-napper)!  I can live with that.

My goals were fairly modest- really all I wanted was a longer first stretch and a foundation for the ability to recognize when he's sleepy and be able to do something about it.  I'm really happy with how it's been going, so I wanted to share for those looking for options and thank MrsErinElizabeth for sharing her success at the right time