Thanks for all the replies.

Usually, if people ask if DS is "good" I reply that he's perfect and that shuts people up. If asked, I usually say he sleeps 8-7 most days, as he does. He just wakes in between, a fact most people don't need to know. I aren't going to lie and say I have done CC because I believe that CC is a form of torture (after all, starving your baby or locking your baby out naked in the snow is torture, why is depriving your child of an emotional need any different?) and there's no way I will ever do that. Doesn't matter that DS is only my first so I don't know about anything, doesn't matter that "everyone" resorts to it, doesn't matter that I have no sleep. I can live with no sleep, DS can't learn how to love without me showing him.

Without letting DS cry, I can pat him back to sleep a lot of the time. Yes, I haven't been able to do that since birth, but I can now do it and we're both happy about it. Without letting DS cry he has slept until about 4am in his own cot a couple of times this last week. I am thrilled for that. DS will sleep without crying it out. I feel awful when I have cried myself to sleep when I wake, so why do I want DS to feel like that?

Sadly, this advice came when I had a breakdown after a week of very broken sleep (a 2 hour stretch was good then!) and I could have just walloped them! I did snap at one friend and felt awful about it, she's an anti-CC person too but told me she thought DS was tired... well, der! Everyone normally thinks that DS sleeps pretty well, despite not going through, as I look so fab and like I'm managing! And I can get him back down within about 5 minutes usually, you can't do that with control crying (for one thing, you're supposed to just listen to the screaming for ten minutes, which is twice as long... a point I may use!).

I'm taking the Science of Parenting along on Friday to show a friend about the CCing studies in there, I really hope that will shut up the girl who wants me to CC! I'm constantly having to tell her 3-year-old that DS is playing with that toy and he doesn't need help or her to take it away, or that he's trying to sleep so can she not keep touching him... if the mother doesn't notice that she may not notice this though!

Astrid, you poor love - I have a fab GP, luckily, but my depression is exacerbated by DS, not caused by him. After all, he doesn't go fishing for days at a time, nor does he make nasty comments about my parenting or tell me I'm doing it wrong and he hasn't had a campaign of hate against me for about 20 years. Cure my mother and my husband will want to stay at home more and I will be better when DS doesn't sleep!