Hi Kelly, thanks for asking for clarification :-) To be honest, my DD hardly ever cries. If she does happen to cry going down it's an over-tired cry. So I probably used the wrong terminolgy but to me she's protesting because she's tired and doesn't know how else to express herself.

If she wakes in the night (rare) I always attend because it's a rare occurence. Although I tend to wait a minute to see if she's transitioning between sleep cycles (usually just cries out rather than a real cry) or if it's a real hearty cry - I always attend this cry. Usually she's sitting up and just needs a cuddle - seems like she has the occasional bad dream.

I was really just trying to make the point that listening to cries rather than treating them all the same has really paid dividends for me. I have a DD that sleeps really well and because of that, rarely cries making it easy to work out what's going on.

Hope that helps. Sorry if I misrepresentated myself by saying that...