Transitioning from cradling to sleep?

[Autumn1983]

I still cradle my DS 16mo to sleep (after bottle and teeth brush). He generally sleeps through the night, but I don't want to be cradling him when he's 5 and would like to transition to putting him in his cot awake, reading a story and then leaving the room. For some reason we never did this earlier and he gets comfort from the current arrangement.

Did anyone else do this with their baby and if so, when and how did you make the transition?

My DS was falling asleep on the bottle and then we'd put him into the cot. He stopped all bottles at around 15 months so we switched to bringing him to his room and putting him in his cot, one of us then sat on a chair next to his cot with him until he went to sleep. Sometimes it takes 5 minutes other times it could take 30 so not sure if this is what you're looking for. We're still doing it and he turned 2 in Aug. We don't mind it though, we throw on earphones and listen to a podcast or something, my DH says it helps him wind down after work.
You could try a story when he's in the cot, we don't because our DS absolutely loves books and we read constantly throughout the day and I know a story at bedtime would just rile him up!!