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@Revel: I really feel like we somehow picked the perfect time to do it. I could tell it was getting harder and harder for her to sleep because she was so dependent on nursing, but that she was also very tired. I was uncomfortable with leaving her to CIO at this age. and although it was tough to stay in the room with her, I think it worked best for us. Her sleep isn't perfect yet, but it is so much better! Good luck!

@allison: we decided to do it in phases. For the first week I nursed her to sleep and then set her down. I figured if this worked, great. She did get better at staying asleep through the transfer, but it had no effect on her MOTN wake ups. After a week, we changed our routine so that I nursed first, then went on with the rest of the routine with my husband putting her down in the crib fully awake. On the second night she slept straight until 2 am in the crib.
However, we weren't ready to move her to her own room, and she started waking up more frequently again. Not as bad as before, but still several times a. Night. Getting out of bed to nurse her back to sleep wasn't working, so we started co bedding again.

All of that to say, we did it slowly. She puts herself right to sleep most nights, and sleeps alone for the first few hours. Usually she wakes up twice to nurse during the overnight.

We are thinking about moving her out of our room and will probably have to do some sleep training to address over night wake ups then.

Good luck!

@allison: well, the most important thing to me, and our biggest issue, was her putting herself to sleep & then staying asleep by herself. once we did that, I felt rested enough to continue with the wake ups (as long as she was in our bed).

we sort of do what works as long as it works. Lately co-bedding hasn't been working, but we've had a lot going on (teeth, milestones, travel, illness, schedule chnages) so we're going to wait a little longer and see if she returns to sleeping better. I do think she won't sleep through the night until we move her out of our room.

When we do that, we will do some form of CIO. It worked really well for us, and wasn't terrible. I listened to my ipod and she really just whined- never got too upset. Plus, there was a huge improvement from night one to night two. My husband took the first night- is that an option for you? Once it was my turn it was so much easier for me because I had seen her do it the night before.