Sleep training after 1 night (5 months)

Y'all. I never wanted to let my baby cry during sleep training but my husband and i tried other no cry solutions and none were working. I was so exhausted because my baby was still waking every 1.5-2 hours and needed me to bounce him to go back to sleep every single time. He couldn't self soothe what so ever. I called my pediatrician and they suggested controlled crying if I felt comfortable.

It broke my heart. Just crushed it into so many pieces hearing my baby cry 😭 😭. We did the Ferber method but he still ate twice and we never went over 10 minutes letting him cry.

Every 10 minutes we went in, patted him and never stayed in his room longer than 2 minutes. I wanted to pick him up so badly but I read that it's not fair to the baby to make him get so upset, just to pick him up in the end and him not to have learned or practiced self soothing/ settling.

The first time he cried for 45 minutes, slept 3 hours, woke up, cried for another hour, slept for an hour, woke up and ate and then he SELF SOOTHED himself back to sleep and slept 5 hours straight (he has never done this. Ever), woke up, ate, and then SELF SOOTHED himself back to sleep and is still sleeping currently.

I'm amazed. It's so hard but he did great for the first night. He has never self soothed before and he learned he could in the first night! I saw him do it on the baby monitor both times after he ate and was laid down drowsy. He really only woke up once, the other two he needed to eat.

Hopefully tonight he improves!

*update night 2* I just feel so annoyed. He did awful. So much worse than night one. Woke up at least 5 times, screamed for over 40 minutes each time he woke up. He woke up this morning at 4:30 and never stopped crying until we got him up at 6. His longest stretch was less than 2 hours.

I don't get it. I thought each night was supposed to get better but it got significantly worse.

*update night 3* he did so well! Cried for 11 minutes, went to sleep, woke up twice but just fussed and went to sleep, woke up at 12 am to eat and then slept until 5:30!