diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index d89ad65..07ad365 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -1003,6 +1003,7 @@ Once built, images will be saved to the same directory the command is invoked
 - [x] pull logic for training diffusion prior into a class DiffusionPriorTrainer, for eventual script based + CLI based training
 - [x] make sure the cascading ddpm in the repository can be trained unconditionally, offer a one-line CLI tool for training on a folder of images
 - [x] bring in cross-scale embedding from iclr paper https://github.com/lucidrains/vit-pytorch/blob/main/vit_pytorch/crossformer.py#L14
+- [x] cross embed layers for downsampling, as an option
 - [ ] become an expert with unets, cleanup unet code, make it fully configurable, port all learnings over to https://github.com/lucidrains/x-unet (test out unet² in ddpm repo) - consider https://github.com/lucidrains/uformer-pytorch attention-based unet
 - [ ] transcribe code to Jax, which lowers the activation energy for distributed training, given access to TPUs
 - [ ] train on a toy task, offer in colab
@@ -1015,7 +1016,6 @@ Once built, images will be saved to the same directory the command is invoked
 - [ ] make sure FILIP works with DALL-E2 from x-clip https://arxiv.org/abs/2111.07783
 - [ ] offer save / load methods on the trainer classes to automatically take care of state dicts for scalers / optimizers / saving versions and checking for breaking changes
 - [ ] bring in skip-layer excitatons (from lightweight gan paper) to see if it helps for either decoder of unet or vqgan-vae training
-- [ ] cross embed layers for downsampling, as an option
 - [ ] decoder needs one day worth of refactor for tech debt
 
 ## Citations
diff --git a/dalle2_pytorch/dalle2_pytorch.py b/dalle2_pytorch/dalle2_pytorch.py
index af5552e..e27d304 100644
--- a/dalle2_pytorch/dalle2_pytorch.py
+++ b/dalle2_pytorch/dalle2_pytorch.py
@@ -41,9 +41,6 @@ def exists(val):
 def identity(t, *args, **kwargs):
     return t
 
-def is_odd(n):
-    return (n % 2) == 1
-
 def default(val, d):
     if exists(val):
         return val
@@ -1235,12 +1232,13 @@ class CrossEmbedLayer(nn.Module):
     def __init__(
         self,
         dim_in,
-        dim_out,
         kernel_sizes,
+        dim_out = None,
         stride = 2
     ):
         super().__init__()
-        assert all([*map(is_odd, kernel_sizes)])
+        assert all([*map(lambda t: (t % 2) == (stride % 2), kernel_sizes)])
+        dim_out = default(dim_out, dim_in)
 
         kernel_sizes = sorted(kernel_sizes)
         num_scales = len(kernel_sizes)
@@ -1282,6 +1280,8 @@ class Unet(nn.Module):
         init_conv_kernel_size = 7,
         resnet_groups = 8,
         init_cross_embed_kernel_sizes = (3, 7, 15),
+        cross_embed_downsample = False,
+        cross_embed_downsample_kernel_sizes = (2, 4),
         **kwargs
     ):
         super().__init__()
@@ -1302,7 +1302,7 @@ class Unet(nn.Module):
         init_channels = channels if not lowres_cond else channels * 2 # in cascading diffusion, one concats the low resolution image, blurred, for conditioning the higher resolution synthesis
         init_dim = default(init_dim, dim // 3 * 2)
 
-        self.init_conv = CrossEmbedLayer(init_channels, init_dim, init_cross_embed_kernel_sizes, stride = 1)
+        self.init_conv = CrossEmbedLayer(init_channels, dim_out = init_dim, kernel_sizes = init_cross_embed_kernel_sizes, stride = 1)
 
         dims = [init_dim, *map(lambda m: dim * m, dim_mults)]
         in_out = list(zip(dims[:-1], dims[1:]))
@@ -1362,6 +1362,12 @@ class Unet(nn.Module):
 
         assert len(resnet_groups) == len(in_out)
 
+        # downsample klass
+
+        downsample_klass = Downsample
+        if cross_embed_downsample:
+            downsample_klass = partial(CrossEmbedLayer, kernel_sizes = cross_embed_downsample_kernel_sizes)
+
         # layers
 
         self.downs = nn.ModuleList([])
@@ -1377,7 +1383,7 @@ class Unet(nn.Module):
                 ResnetBlock(dim_in, dim_out, time_cond_dim = time_cond_dim, groups = groups),
                 Residual(LinearAttention(dim_out, **attn_kwargs)) if sparse_attn else nn.Identity(),
                 ResnetBlock(dim_out, dim_out, cond_dim = layer_cond_dim, time_cond_dim = time_cond_dim, groups = groups),
-                Downsample(dim_out) if not is_last else nn.Identity()
+                downsample_klass(dim_out) if not is_last else nn.Identity()
             ]))
 
         mid_dim = dims[-1]
diff --git a/setup.py b/setup.py
index 86d5df6..8eea324 100644
--- a/setup.py
+++ b/setup.py
@@ -10,7 +10,7 @@ setup(
       'dream = dalle2_pytorch.cli:dream'
     ],
   },
-  version = '0.2.7',
+  version = '0.2.8',
   license='MIT',
   description = 'DALL-E 2',
   author = 'Phil Wang',