Revisiting Controlled Crying: Any success?

[Cbell]

We used CC with my DS at 9 months old and it worked pretty well taking us from waking every 1 to two hours to sleeping from 7pm till 4am.

We've had our ups and downs over the intervening months but largely followed a pattern if him sleeping nine hours. However 4 weeks ago it all went to shit. First one wake up, now two and sometimes taking 1.5 hours to settle.

It's really taking its toll in me DH and consequently DD (3yrs). We've attempted to try CC but he SCREAMS THE HOUSE DOWN.

Has anyone had any luck overcoming this kind of situation? What did you do?

How old is your DS?

Personally I think CC only "works" for a certain age bracket and then only until the next big milestone/illness/tooth etc (We did CC with Ds1 at around 11mo - which lasted until the excitement of Christmas 3 weeks later when we were staying with relatives)

dS1 is now 3.8 and still has his moments - what has worked has been things like rapid return (12-18mo) a "Scout" talking teddy bear (Leapfrog green one - he was 2.1 and it worked for months as a bedtime distractor)
From 2.5 he has been old enough to have things explained, but then the night terrors started....

We now have dS2 (8mo) and seriously considering putting them in a room together to try and avoid some of the fun we've had with DS1

It worked for us.
First did it at 6 months and it was textbook, worked in 3 nights and although I found it really hard, DD was so much happier once she was sleeping better. I was going back to work and waking 5 times a night was just not an option.

We had to repeat it at 9 months as we had slipped back into rocking to sleep etc. Worked in 2 nights. However, we only had to use it for the first session i.e. getting to sleep. If she woke in the night it was always for a reason and so we always responded. He may be thirsty, can you leave a beaker I the cot for him to find?

DS is 1yo. We used the method first at 9 months and the best we got was sleeping through till 4am then it was up for the day.

We've had various deviations such as patting to sleep but the bug change came 3 weeks ago and when we try CC again he goes insane.

I am responding to my DS and trying gentle sleep methods, basically feeding and rocking him to sleep as I'm concerned its related to seperatioon anxiety.

Not sure if to wait it out or try for the CC.