Hi Nervy
DS was sleeping (ha!!) in his own room in a cot at the time. (He was also rather attached to his dummy, which I think may have been some of the problem too).
He started to wake in the night in the early hours and cry and be unable to settle himself. One of us would go to him, give him back his dummy if he'd 'lost' it, give his nappy a check to make sure it wasn't dirty or too wet, and give him a cuddle and put him down and he'd be ok for a short while then he'd cry again until we went to him and on it went for the night. I'd stopped BFing by that time and was at least 8 months old. So DH and I decided that this nightly routine was killing us both so we decided that DS wasn't in need of anything in particular, just anxious that we weren't there when he woke and he didn't want to be left.
I may get flamed for this, but this is what we did...
He would wake and cry. We would go to him the first time and do the usual checks. Cuddle him, settle him, put him down in the cot, stroke his head and leave. He'd start crying almost immediately. So we waited by the door for 15 seconds and let him cry. Then go back in, settle him, put him down, stroke his head and leave the room. He'd start to cry but we would leave him for a bit longer this time before going back in. It really was just 15 or 30 second increments as it feels like much longer than that when they are crying. To start with I think we must have gone in and out 10 or 15 times like this. Then he would finally settle. Our thinking was that he knew if he cried we would come, but each time we would take a tiny bit longer to come. Some would say it's just controlled crying, but I wouldn't leave him for 5 minutes the first time - believe me we'd tried and he'd been know to scream the house down for as long as it took (guilty feeling now).
We probably still got up and repeated this new 'routine' about 8 times the first night. It was hell, but we both felt that we had control over the situation more than before.
The next night was much the same but we truly saw an improvement in a few nights and like I said, he was sleeping through within 2 weeks and was never an issue after that. We did also buy enough dummies to leave around the cot so that if he groped around he could find one and settle himself.
He ended up being a great 'sleeper inner' and when I was heavily pregnant with his little brother and he was 20 months, he was letting me sleep til gone 8am, which was heaven (especially when I went on maternity leave!!)
He's almost 11 now and a great sleeper who puts himself to bed and regularly has to be woken for school in the mornings!