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We did CIO with checks. the first night we did checks at 3 min, 5 min, and 7 min, and then repeated 7 min if necessary. During the check, we laid our hands on him, said something soothing, patted him, and then left the room. He usually continued to cry while we did the check and ramped up for the few seconds right after we left.

Here was our experience:
I just wanted to update on our sleep training experience!! It has gone REALLY well...the first night, LO cried for 20 minutes (with checks at 3, 5, and 7 min) and then went to sleep...he woke up at 1am, cried for 3 minutes and then put himself to sleep (and then I accidentally woke him up but that's another story...) and slept til 6!
night 2, he put himself to sleep no problem, woke up at 130, I nursed him, woke up at 5, cried for 23 min (with checks at 5 min, and then he was mainly just fussing), and then slept til 715.
night 3, he put himself to sleep no problem (at around 7pm) and slept til 5! He then went back to sleep til 730, when I woke him up for the day.
I by no means think that every night will be like last night, but I feel SO positive about the whole experience and am a total Ferber convert So if anyone is debating, I say go for it!! There was so much less crying and fussing than I thought there would be.
(copy and pasted from my thread: http://boards.hellobee.com/topic/talk-to-me-about-ferber)

We did CIO with checks but didn't have increments set. We went in when we felt necessary. We pat him for a bit then left. He did well with that approach.

@Revel: I think it's the sort of thing that you won't know until you try...when we first did it, LO wasn't just whining and fussing when we left--he was SCREAMING. But he did calm down eventually, over time and as we did the checks. But some babies don't, and CIO is probably not good for those babies. Or your LO just might not be ready--we tried CIO at 5 months and it was a disaster, and then tried again at 6.5 months and it worked. So you just never know! Good luck! I think whatever method you choose to do, you MUST be consistent. One of the things Ferber talks about in his book is "meaningful crying"--another words, if you let LO cry for 10 minutes and then go get him and just nurse him/rock him to sleep anyway, it's like those 10 minutes were pointless crying. But if you continue to stick to your plan, then at least the crying has a purpose, if that makes sense? It made it easier for me to continue on!

We CIO at 5.5 months and it took a week, with a couple of mini regressions - night 3 was worse than 2 and 6 was worse than 5. We did checks at first and found that it just made him even more hysterical so we switched to extinction on night 2. First night he cried for an hour (threw up at minute 12, we just cleaned up and put him back in, that was heartbreaking but we didn't want him to have cried in vain). Second night was around 50 mins, and third night was another hour with a throw up. It got better from then on, he even night weaned himself during that time. By night 7 he was sleeping 8-9 hours straight with no crying and it lengthened as he got older.

That was a tough week but our lives are better for it. I hope this works for you, hang in there mama!