6 month old cannot get to sleep without cuddles

[supersonic]

My DS is 6 months old and is breastfed and on 3 meals a day ocassionally give a bottle and this is working great and all is fine in this dept., however, the sleep is a whole different ball game he basically doesnt know how to go off to sleep on his own first it was b/f that guaranteed him to go off now even if I wanted to help him get off to sleep with a prop like b/feeding this doesnt always do the job, he cries because he is so tired and cannot get himself off to sleep it is heart breaking watching him and not being able to do anything to help in in the sm=ame breath I cannot bear to hear him crying whilst I leave him has anyone got any advice or tried and tested methods of helping ot learn this skill (for informatino I had the same problem with my DD who is 5 years old now and only in the last year has improved greatly this time I have to nip it in the bud HELP)
thanks

Anyone HELP - just tried to lay him in cot - which was fine have been doing this for a couple of weeks and naps are not too bad (bit hit and miss sometimes 45 mins - 2 hrs)but this time everytime I went to lay him the cot he screamed blue murder it was horrible this went on for 1 hour and 30 mins and it was time for lunch so aborted and he is now tired but I amt ryting to keep him to somekind of routine please help cos at the moment I just dont know how to deal with it and he is probably getting mixed messages from me - HELLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLP

Hi supersonic, my kids are long past this stage but from what I remember it's really quite usual. I used to rock them to sleep in my arms, and then we adapted the cot so it could be gently rocked too. I used to sing my kids to sleep for many years - right up until they started school. I enjoyed this time with them, it was very precious.

Aaaahhhhh I will help, let me come over and cuddle him for you...

sorry, I'm broody, but not helpful am I?

sod what the books tell you. feed your LO to sleep, it wont be forever.

sorry, jsut re read your message, is not working. try lying in your bed with him and cuddling him off to sleep....

i cuddled ds1 to sleep till he was about 6m, then led on my bed with him then put him in his cot till he was about 8 months, then put him in his cot and sat next to it till he started going off till he was 12m.
from 12m on we put him in his cot and walked away straight away. he is fine with this and goes straight to sleep.
it took a year for us to be able to put him to bed and leave him with no bother and many will disagree but i felt this was the right way to do it as there was never any upset at any stage this way.
it was worth it as he sleeps lovely now. i never had it in me to leave him crying or anything like that.
with ds2, i will try and introduce the simply walking away one earlier but if he doesnt go for it, then fine, i will do it the old way. they are only little once imo.
when he is 17 and a little git out all night i'm sure i will wish all the going to bed malarky could come back!!

megusta's post sums mine up perfectly. didnt see it before sorry.

I have mentioned this on a couple of threads before, but there is a method called controlled comforting which is a modified form of controlled crying (do a google search) and it worked for us. Quite hard, but worth the pain in the end as he now happily goes to sleep by himself. I am sure someone else will be along to suggest no-cry methods. There was a thread on this which you could search for...