Crying at night

Kyle's a little over 9 months old now and I've finally convinced myself and his dad that crying a little at night to sleep will be ok. He had been waking up crying 2-4 times a night and it was starting to wear both of us down. He had been nursing to sleep at night (a bad habit but he always fell asleep after his 7:30-8:30 feeding) and nursing almost every time he woke up. The last 2 nights we put him to bed awake and he cried for less than 20 minutes before going to sleep (much better than we thought it would be). He doesn't use a pacifier so going in and reinserting it was never an option.

He still wakes up at night but for all instances except 1 per night we have stopped going into to his room to respond. I just want to know if others have a little one who wakes up several times at night and cries for a few minutes. Now that we aren't responding I am realizing he will go back to sleep after these wakeups. This morning he finally woke up talking for a short while before shouting louder for attention. It has been a long time since he's woken up and sounded happy from the start.