Wow, I've been there. Only you will know what works for you and your family. If you're against crying it out, don't do it, but I did want to share my experiences with it. I want to first say that we only did this for night sleeping. We wanted to be consistent and firm and that's much easier, for us, if it was at night. Before actually beginning sleep training, we started the process of stripping away as many crutches as possible so sleep training would be as easy as possible. In my case, that means NOT nursing her to sleep. I would nurse, keep her awake then help her fall asleep and then put her in her bed asleep (she was about seven months old then). From here we worked on putting her in her crib awake and getting her to fall asleep on her own. This was the difficult part. She would cry. We wouldn't go in there. The most she cried was twenty minutes, the first night. Then ten the second and then she fell asleep with just some grumbling. After this, we worked on losing the four am feeding. This went smoothly because she had already learned how to fall asleep on her own. After trips or visitors, sometimes things would take a step back, but it was never as hard as the initial two nights. When she would stand up, it was a game time decision about what to do. If she started to get hysterical, we would go in and calm her down and lay her down. This often made her more upset, so we would try not to go in there at all. When we didn't go in there, she eventually sat down out of exhaustion then rolled onto her side and fell asleep. Once she did actually fall asleep sitting up. Despite these stories, it was fairly easy. The key was to be consistent and represent a united front. My daughter is not thirteen months. When walking and milestones start happening, sleep is seriously affected. I don't know how we would have gotten through and continue to survive through these changes without her knowing how to put herself to sleep. There are always steps back, but my personal opinion is that a child needs to be taught how to fall asleep on her own. Unlike crawling and walking, kids won't necessarily develop good sleep habits on their own. And, unlike eating, playing and learning, there isn't a chance to reward with clapping and smiles, because, obviously when he is successful, he's asleep. Again, I'm not trying to push my ways on you, I just wanted to give you a heads up that, at least from my experience, around a year, infants really start to assert will power. Trying to impose routines becomes much more difficult and separating from you becomes harder on her. Best of luck. Again, my personal advice would be to be tough now so that she feels and sleeps better as soon as possible and in the future. Take care, hope you all have some great sleep ahead of you.
