My 13 1/2 month son won't sleep in his own crib

Posted By Mary on March 30, 1999 at 07:54:42:







My husband and I are at our wits end, we cannot get our 13  month old son, Alex, to sleep in his own crib.  Up until a few months ago, he would fall asleep with the bottle and we would him put into his crib already asleep.  He would only occasionally sleep through the night and when he would wake up we would rock him back to sleep then place him back into his crib.  Consequently he has never learned to fall asleep on his own.  For the past two months, he has been sick with the flu on and off again.  During that time he got into the habit of sleeping with my husband and myself.  Now that he is better we want him to sleep in his own crib.  However, everytime we try to put him down he either starts to scream or if hes asleep, immediately wakes up and starts to scream.  Last night we tried Richard Ferbers method of letting him cry and going in to his room at intervals, but after 5 hours of crying we couldnt handle it any more and brought him to bed with us.  Within a minute he was fast asleep.  When he would fall asleep for a minute or two at a time in his crib it would be standing up.  We are beginning to despair that well be able to get him to go to sleep on his own and would welcome any suggestions.  We have a bedtime routine of playtime, bath, storytime, bottle. How long is a reasonable length of time to let him cry for?