Sleep like a baby?!

My littlest cherub, my 3 month old son, gave us the gift of sleep by sleeping through the night on Christmas Eve, and for several days after that.  After he became ill with a stomach bug, he abruptly stopped sleeping through the night.  Now that he is feeling much better, I expected he'd get back to regular sleep.  No chance.  This little kiddo should be sleeping 14-15 hours a day, but he's lucky to get a total of 10.  He should sleep 10 of the 15 hours during the night (not expected to be all at once), and 4-5 during the day in naps.  Well naps are almost totally non-existent at this point, and last night, for example, he slept less than 6 hours.  He's had approximately 7 1/2 hours of sleep today, about half of what he needs.  He's crabby, we're crabby, it's impossible to get anything done around here all of a sudden.  You know he can't be feeling good on such little sleep.

I did not want to be overlooking something, and possibly ignoring symptoms that were from some medical issue, so I took him in to see the pediatrician.  Her diagnosis was, basically, that he's a momma's boy.  She said the stomach bug probably threw him off, but now it's sleep habits causing this.  I'm not sure how since these were not his sleep habits 2 weeks ago.  But she said maybe he's used to me rocking him or holding him until he falls asleep, and he's just naturally waking up when I put him down and doesn't have the ability to get himself back to sleep.  She tells me he's too young to cry it out, so that's that.  I got no other advice.  (I certainly can't hold this baby for 14-15 hours while he sleeps, plus all the times he wants me to hold him while he's awake.  Not that it's much different now, since he's up most hours of the day and I have to hold him or be right with him anyway.) 

I have been scouring the internet for advice, and I've seen a lot about crying it out.  Again, she doesn't even recommend that until 6-9 months, although she admits some peds say 4 months is okay.  Either way, she says I'm not supposed to let him cry it out yet.  So I'm stumped.  Tonight I'll try my hardest to go to sleep the second he does, so I can try to get as much sleep as possible so I can keep up with this.  The lack of sleep is dragging me down.  He slept better as a newborn! 

If you have a secret remedy to this issue, please share!  =)



One more kid quote for the day:
-My sister's rat passed away today, and I was explaining that to my son.  I told him that the "ratty" (as he called him) died, and so his Auntie was sad.  This is what he had to say about it:

"I will see (Auntie), and give her a hug.  I will tell her that it's okay because we bought her a NEW ratty!!"

Side note: We did not buy her a new ratty.  Guess he'll be raiding the piggy bank and driving the power wheels to the nearest rat dealer (or whatever you'd call someone who sells rats).