I'm glad you've found something that works for you.

I think everyone just muddles along and does a real mixture of things until they find something that works. We all follow part instinct and part advice and of course the cues from our baby.

What you are describing doesn't sound like the CIO that many books discuss, which involves leaving your baby for increasing periods of time, up to an hour by a certain age, and not 'giving in'. Many babies vomit from crying, or loose trust in their parent and sob themselves to sleep.

You listened to your baby and followed your instinct. I think that is different from people telling parents to just leave their babies to sort themselves out by going out of ear shot of the child.

I don't like labels as a general rule, but I can see how what you describe is gentle parenting for your babies...as a general rule though, I think gentle parenting is listening to a baby's cues, so I have an issue with e mainstream version of CIO being assigned a GP label.

But that's all just semantics.