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We first did a modified CIO when he was 6ish months old, and my personal cut-off was 15 minutes.

I would let him cry for up to 15 minutes UNLESS it was hysterics, and then I would in sooner (usually around 10 minutes) or if it was just a drawn-out, tired but fighting it whining cry, and then I would let it go to 20. Once or twice I went in earlier (once he was wet, the other time he had dropped his pacifier out of the crib). A few times I let him go longer (he always fell asleep by 20). Most of the time he was asleep within 12 minutes.

But this was strictly in transitioning him to sleep in his own crib in his own room (he was co-sleeping in our bed before that), not night-wakings. I still respond to night-wakings pretty much as soon as they wake me up. His room shares a wall with another apartment and the walls aren't thick, so I'm not comfortable letting him cry for however long at 4AM. It's not a huge bother to me, as he usually only wakes up once during the night (unless he's actively teething, and then I'm not sure CIO would work anyway...)

Our cutoff was 1 1/2 hours... LOL. She would only get more frustrated if we came in at smaller increments, so we just let her at it.

if he was full-on crying (not hysterics but also not just fussing), my limit at the beginning was an hour. however i discovered that if i went in, it would make things worse and restart the vigor of the crying, so there were 1 or 2 times where he cried for 2 hours (again, not hysterics, but just a consistent low-level cry). it was horrible and it's hard for me to type out that i let him cry for that long.

also, there was one night where he was learning how to suck his thumb and he intermittently cried/fussed for 3 hours. he would cry for 5 minutes, stop for 5 minutes, fuss for 5 minutes, stop for five minutes, and so on. this was painful because it dragged out so long but he was not full-on crying and i could see on the monitor that he kept trying to suck his thumb.

he was about 12 weeks old. i have to note that my LO really, really fought sleep. he would not fall asleep in our arms, in the stroller, a carseat in a moving car, a carrier, a swing, being rocked...even daycare mentioned that the usual tricks did not work for him. so i feel like we were a bit more extreme than most.

We sleep trained at 4.5 months with Wagon Jr. We let him cry for 5 mins (had to be consistent crying, not on and off) then went in and rocked him back to sleep. Next time he cried, we waited 10 mins. The next time, 15 mins. We only had to wait 15 mins twice. It was torture. But he was sleep trained in a week or two. Same strategy with nap training. By the end of it all we could put him down fully awake and he'd fall asleep on his own with no crying. He woke crying several times a night for years. But he could always fall back asleep on his own.

LMW we never sleep trained. She started STTN at 8 months on her own. We only have to go in if she's sick or something. But she let us put her down awake pretty early. She fell asleep with her bedtime feeding when she was little, and after we got rid of that feeding she was ok with being put down awake.

We are lucky, I know. And of course we didn't have two at the same time... :T

My personal limit was about 20 minutes, though she rarely cried for longer than like, 5. As others said, it really depends on whether you're dealing with fussing/crying/full-on hysterics, and you just have to use your mom judgement, really.

Totally depends how hard he's crying. If he's crying hard, ill wait 10-15 min. Hysterics--i go in after 2 or 3 if he hasn't calmed down. Fussing--I let him go for a while--maybe an hour although its never come to that.