Well the retreat is extremely gradual! DD normally has 7oz before bed, and in the past if she didn't fall asleep on the bottle I would then bf her to sleep - which took anything from 10 minutes to 1 hour. Then during the night I would bf her to sleep every time she woke up, and bringing her into bed when I got too tired to bf sitting up (which was most nights!).
So I decided about 10 days ago that this had to change (had tried NCSS previously by the way which didn't work for us!); saw this thread and thought I'd try it.
On the first night I gave DD a cuddle after her bottle, then put her in her cot. Took her 1 hour to sleep with lots of crying, pick ups and shushes BUT she didn't wake again till 3am (slept at 8) - although she then stayed awake till 5.30. The second night she slept for 11 hours and I thought my problems were over!!
The next few nights however were a bit of a nightmare, she would not self-settle in the middle of the night, had epic screamfests and would eventually whimper to sleep held in my arms (oh all this took about 1.5-2 hours), so I very reluctantly went back to bf to sleep for a few nights after. Which is where we're at currently.
She was at nursery today, and only had a 45 minute nap (did I mention that she doesn't nap much during the day either??), so was completely shattered, took her about 13 minutes to self-settle. So far still asleep, so I'm hoping she'll continue for a bit!
I've retreated from being right next to the cot to being about a foot away, where she can still see me. So not very far really!