You might remember that the first months of Siiri's life we reacted every time she cried even a little. We decided crying is bad for her and we have to help her however we can every time she cries. It worked just fine until she started loathing going to sleep. She had 3 naps during the day (she must have been 8-9 months) and she woke up a few times per night. With her weight increasing she got too heavy for me to cradle to sleep several times each day. Erkki helped when he could but during work hours and night time it was mostly just me (except when I was so exhausted that Erkki woke up even before I did). But even then I kept cradling her to sleep.
Then things got even worse - Siiri needed help falling asleep but when we tried to help, she protested. I remember using my last strength to cradle her to sleep while she screamed and wriggled because she didn't want to go to sleep. It took me up to 30 minutes to cradle her asleep and even then she sometimes woke up an hour later.
Enough is enough - the situation clearly wasn't for anyones benefit. The worst of it was that Siiri was starting to depend on it, so when she woke up for even a moment at night, she cried louder and louder until someone helped her asleep, and she kept crying while I was helping her. Sometimes she was wriggling so much she risked falling out of her sleep-deprived mother's arms. We started with the controlled crying method carefully, trying to ease into it. We made a bedtime routine which ended with a lullaby. It was going well until Siiri realized that we only sing lullabies when it's bed time. After that she started screaming when she heard even a couple of notes of it.
We tried staying in the same room to make her feel less abandoned but she spent all her time displaying how upset she is at us by crying extra loudly and not even trying to fall asleep, so our presence just made things worse. 
Besides I had planned to stay calm so I don't make falling asleep even harder but I became fidgety after having spent 10 minutes in an intolerably noisy environment and that wasn't helping anyone. Then we tried to at least leave the door open so she doesn't feel like a prisoner in her bedroom, but then she saw all that awaits her on the other side of that bedroom door, and cried even louder because she couldn't reach it. So finally we settled into the approximately 10-minute long cycle. We signaled that it's bed time (bed time routine!) and we sang a lullaby, and then closed the door behind us when we left. It seemed important to portray a very calm aura even though it was very stressful for us. Siiri cried and tried to get us to stop this nonsense but we just occasionally, perhaps once every 10 minutes, went to her to say a few kind words and to offer her water. It took a couple of weeks to get used to it but then it all worked out.
It usually didn't take her more than 20 minutes to fall asleep in this way, which is FASTER than when I cradled her. When she woke up during the night it was because she was hungry and even then fell asleep faster.This sort of changes work best if they're universal so we tried not to make too many exceptions, at least not without a good reason. The worst time was when we were visiting Erkki's relatives. Siiri had settled into one nap per day but this time she also had a second nap not long before bed time.
So when it was bed time, she was habitually sleepy but unable to fall asleep. It didn't help at all that she was supposed to sleep on a mattress on the floor and she constantly went wandering. We tried several things to get her to fall asleep - until we let her cry alone in the room for a while (after making the room safe). It was probably more stressful for me than it was for Siiri. There were too many curious people coming to spy why Siiri is crying. There were too many people coming to check if they can perhaps save the day and I was explaining to them that Siiri is already able to fall asleep if she chooses so. 
I told them I can't FORCE her to fall asleep and I can't help her if she doesn't want to be helped. Maybe it was just in my head, but I felt like I got at least a couple of looks saying, "what kind of a mother are you?!". Eventually it turned out that with enough determination, a baby can be rocked to sleep against her will if she's sleepy enough. All in all, it was a very uncomfortable situation.I also told our babysitters about how we put Siiri to sleep. I told them that they may do the same. One babysitter asked, "But don't you cradle her at all anymore?" "no, I haven't done that in a while. It just doesn't work on her when I cradle her. It doesn't help her fall asleep faster, it just makes her more dependant on my presence when she needs to fall asleep." I kinda left it up to the nanny how she puts Siiri to sleep, but hinted that controlled crying might be better because it's more consistent for Siiri and she does know how to fall asleep on her own, even if she doesn't like it. So when I came home, the nanny said she put Siiri to bed like I suggested and Siiri was asleep in less than 20 minutes. She also said it was ghastly and said something along the lines of her not being used to this sort of thing and preferring cradling. The way she said it sounded very judgemental in an annoyingly polite way. Damn it, girl, you don't even have children! I was very polite to her and have never called her again.
So, what I'm trying to say is that even though it wasn't what I had planned for Siiri when she was younger, and it wasn't always easy, we used controlled crying method and it was much better than the alternatives. There was even a study about it recently which concluded that controlled crying method or sleep training doesn't lead to later emotional and behavioural problems. Sleep problems often don't magically go away when the child gets older and by ignoring the problem, the child might not grow out of it until they're 4 or 5 or something. I think there a lot of important stages in child development during those years
and it's certainly not good if the child spends all that time being constantly somewhat sleep-deprived and the mother is almost always stressed. That could easily be worse than letting the child cry a little."The findings form part of a longitudinal study by Murdoch Childrens into infant sleep, which has shown intervention during infancy significantly reduces sleep problems in children and depression among mothers during the first two years of the child’s life." source
Before I intervened, Siiri was cranky not only during the night but also during the day. I didn't even know she was being cranky until sleep training started working and she became much happier during daytime.So perhaps sometimes it is best to simply let a baby cry. It's certainly not something I'd advertise as the best option for all babies but sometimes it's much better than the alternatives.
Epilogue: months after we started sleep training, Siiri almost seems to like going to sleep. She doesn't cry when I place her in her crib, and one time she actually cried when I didn't put her in bed fast enough. She no longer tries to force me to take her out of her crib whenever she sees me so it doesn't bother her if I stay in the room. I keep her company by quietly reading my book in the same room. I'm not sure she needs it but I think she likes having me stay in the room, as long as I don't make any noise. She sometimes smiles to me while resting her head on her pillow. I give her water whenever she asks and then she puts her head on her pillow and falls asleep without crying.
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