Tonight we did our normal bath, books, nurse routine and after an hour, my son was done nursing and ready to sleep. He was all snuggled up and I went to put him in his crib, which woke him as usual. I had committed myself to get him to fall asleep in his crib tonight, so I put him down and began rubbing his belly and whispering reassuring words. As expected, he started freaking out and resisting sleep, wanting me to pick him up and bring him back to bed with me. I continued to rub his belly/back as he tossed and turned, crying his little heart out, but I stuck to my guns and just kept reassuring him. After half an hour I wanted to give in and stop his crying, but I knew it would only reinforce the problem so I kept with it. Sleep training is so heartbreaking! He fell asleep after 62 minutes and is sleeping so peacefully right now. I'm praying he stays down for a few hours because I don't know I can put us both of us through it again right now. I know it needs to be done because he is too dependent on nursing to sleep and co-sleeping, however it doesn't make going through the process any easier.
The bright side for me is that I know I CAN do it and he will eventually fall asleep and learn to self-settle. I can hear him breathing a deep sleep, which he hasn't done in months.