Sleep update

I guess I owe it to Jackson to share our success in night time sleeping. I didn't post about it yet because I was afraid it wouldn't last. Last time I celebrated him sleeping through the night, it all went downhill quickly. But I am very excited to announce that Jackson is now sleeping through the night, 11 or 12 hours a night!
Three weeks ago we decided that we really just needed to let him cry it out. We had tried just about everything we could think of, and we had some progress, but not enough. We decided not to go in there while he was crying, and to just let him fall asleep on his own. When we had tried going in there before it seemed to just get him more upset when we left. The first night was pretty bad. It took 2 1/2 hours of him crying before he finally went to sleep. He woke up one other time that night and it took a little while for him to go back to sleep, but then slept the rest of the night. Night number two he went to sleep easily and slept through the entire night. The next two nights it took a bit for him to go to sleep (nothing like the first night though). Since then, things have continued to improve.
We start at about 7:30 and go through our nightly routine of brushing teeth, changing diaper, putting on pj's, reading a story, saying prayer, cuddling for a few minutes, and then while he is still awake, I put him down in his crib with his little doll that he sometimes uses as a pillow and six soothers in hopes that he can find one if he needs it in the night. Some nights he doesn't even make a sound and just goes right to sleep. Usually he fusses a little bit but stops by the time I'm to the end of the stairs. Occasionally we still have nights where he'll cry for thirty minutes or so before falling asleep. He generally sleeps through the whole night until somewhere between 6:30 and 8:00....He'll make some sounds and sometimes fuss a little bit during the night, but we have only had to go in there a couple of times. It is just a wonderful thing to have him sleeping on his own! It does kind of either force us to either be at home by 7:30 in the evenings or have a fussy and tired baby on our hands if we're out somewhere, but I think it's worth it.
Naps aren't so great...We still try for (and he still needs) two naps a day. It seems like he often only takes one, and some days he doesn't nap at all. I'll put him down but sometimes he just cries for half an hour and then I get him up again. If he is still acting grumpy and tired, I'll try putting him down again an hour later and sometimes he'll sleep then, sometimes not. Sundays are really hard because he can't really sleep in and then misses his morning nap because we're at church. He used to fall asleep in my arms at church and would at least get a little nap there, but not any more. Then he usually doesn't get an afternoon one either for one reason or another. But most days he does take one nap, ranging anywhere from 45 minutes to 2 1/2 hrs, usually towards the shorter end. I just wish he'd go down as easily for naps as he does at night now!

...sorry there are no pictures. I've gone in his room to take some of him sleeping, but I'm afraid it'll wake him up so I haven't done it.