Alternative to cry it out: lots of patience and time

I never felt attracted to cry it out methods and I decided I would not apply these methods with my son. My son is like most babies: he struggled to fall asleep on his own. My approach to encourage him to fall asleep alone was spending hours and hours with him. I held him until he was drowsy and then I put him down. He would start crying and the cycle of holding/lying down/start crying would be repeated as many times as necessary until he fall asleep. Of course sometimes I would let him fall asleep in my arms, either because I was too tired or because I lost the drowsy moment.

Another important step to help my son fall asleep is to do it when he is tired enough, but not too tired! If if isn't tired enough, he will be playful and smiley while I hold him in my arms. If he is too tired, he is hyper-active. In either cases, it's a nightmare to get him to sleep. In the ideal scenario, he is calm and he doesn't look at anything in particular. As my son grows, he gives me more and more tips that it's bed time. He now rubs his face and his eyes.

It took me around 3 months until I had real results, so a lot of persistency and time was required. Anyway, I don't regret it, it was definitely worth it.