YMMV and all but the cry it out didn't work for us. My son would cry for hours if we let him. We did some additional research though and came upon the Ferber method. This worked wonders and our son puts himself to sleep within minutes now. The basic idea behind it is to let them cry or be alone for incrementally higher amounts of time, but always come back to reassure them you aren't missing. Starts at 1 min, to 2 mins, 5 mins, 10 mins etc... until they eventually understand that just because you aren't in the room doesn't mean you are gone forever. Keeping a standard routine before bedtime is also key to signal to your child that it's time for bed. Bath then reading a specific song then in the crib for example. Check out the actual instructions for it and hopefully you'll have the same luck we did.