How long do I let him cry for?

My son is almost 8 mos old and has never had a problem sleeping through the night in his own crib in his own room, until now.  What do I do?  We always took him for a ride or a walk to fall asleep.  Then we would place him in his crib for the night at 8pm and he wouldn't awake untill 6am.  Now he is getting up at all hours of the night crying and screeming and will not go back to sleep.  I have let him cry for two hours at a time thinking he would fall asleep that way, but it does not work.  Sometimes he will get up at 1am and not fall back to sleep untill 5am.  I have tried EVERYTING!  I have bought a tempur pedic matress for him, a night light, re-aranging his room, switched beds, bathing him right before sleep, and letting sleep in my own bed with comfort from me.  NOTHING is working.  What do I do???

[tiredbuthappy]

i think part of the problem may be that he never learned to fall asleep on his own since you always  went for a ride or walk to help him fall asleep. so now, when he's waking up in the middle of the night, he is unable to soothe himself to sleep.

first you may want to figure out why he is waking in the first place. dd wakes often when she is teething. hyland's teething tabs and tylenol always help in those cases. does he seem uncomfortable? excessive drooling or chewing? you may also want to get his ears checked just to make sure there is no medical reason why he is waking when he normally didn't.

another thing to consider is that separation anxiety often begins to set in at this age. since he doesn't fall asleep on his own, it may be scary for him to wake and and find you are not there suddenly. unfortunately, letting him cry for so long may be reinforcing this fear (if that's what is causing this problem).

this is going to be a hard habit to break. i had an easy time transitioning my daughter, but she is pretty good tempered. we use a special lullaby CD. she was used to falling asleep taking a bottle on our bed. i began gradually, first introducing the CD. we'd rock together and listen to a few songs. the first few nights i stayed in the room until she fell asleep. i would firmly keep my hand on her back while rubbing it to prevent her from getting up, the next step was to just stay quietly in the room. if she got up, i went to the other side of the room and said nite-nite. no other interaction. if she sat down, i sat near her, if she laid down i went next to the crib. we only had to do this for a couple of days, after which we could just rock for a song, then i could put her in the crib awake, sit by her for a minute, and then leave. i just didn't want bedtime to become a nightmare that we all dreaded. now she doesn't even want to rock and wants to get in the crib right away. at 12 months, her new thing is she reads a book in bed and lays down on her own. this may not work for you, but wanted to let you know that it may take baby steps to help him feel secure with bedtime.