sleep training

oh my gosh, guys.  we have been sleep training baby z for 12 nights now.  it is torture.  there is no other way to describe it.  i have been staunchly against sleep training or the crying out method or ferberizing to get z to go to sleep.  he has never been a really good sleeper and it has always been a struggle to get him to fall asleep.  even when he was a tiny newborn, he never really slept as much as any other newborn that i have been around.  until he was about 5 months or so, i would have to nurse him to sleep and if that didn't work, i would have to walk him around or rock him to sleep.  when he was a tiny guy he slept with us and then when he was about 1 month old until about 4 months he slept in his pack n play next to our bed.  then all of a sudden, he learned to roll around and he would not sleep well in the pack n play anymore.  he would only sleep in our bed.  at a certain point, probably when he was around 5 months or so, i could nurse him in our bed and then he would either fall mostly asleep while nursing, unlatch and roll over to sleep, or he would just kind of roll around back and forth and eventually fall asleep.  i started to get tired of having to end my night at 7pm and being tied down for 2 or more hours to get the baby to sleep, but at least it wasn't such a battle to get him to finally get to sleep. a couple of times i tried to get him to sleep in the pack n play or his crib by just letting him cry it out, but after over an hour of him crying to the point of almost vomiting, i caved.  so i decided that i wasn't ready and he wasn't ready and we were just fine with him sleeping with us.  until he became more mobile.  at around 8 months when he really started being able to roll around and move himself better, our sleep became much more disturbed.  he would roll over, back and forth between me and hubs, we would wake up with him lying horizontally between the two of us, one of us would wake up with his feet kicking our face while he was pulling the hair of the other.  hubs began to really drag at work.  none of us were really getting a good night of sleep.  it was time to make a change.  i had already read a few books about sleep training, including two that were based on no-cry concepts.  i had even tried to use some of the no-cry methods, but it wasn't really working that well.  and i had a good conversation with a close friend about how she sleep trained her daughter.  so one night after we had not slept well for a couple of days, i decided that we would just have to try some version of the cry it out method.  so, i read up on the ferber method and some other versions.  one of the most important things to do no matter which sleep training method you choose is to have a consistent bed time routine.  so we decided on bath (every other day or so), jammies, go to his room and say prayers, sing prayers, read a book, nurse, cuddle on the rocking chair, put him into the crib.  i had decided that an hour of crying was the limit and that one of us would go in every 5 minutes to pat him on the back and try to calm him down.  so far, it has gone down like this, i'll list the abbreviated version:
-night 1: he cried for a little over an hour, i went in every 5 minutes or so to try to calm him down without picking him up, he would not calm down and began the hyperventilating-like sobbing so i grabbed him, took him to our bed and nursed him, he rolled around for a few minutes and babbled and then fell asleep in our bed
-night 2: he cried for about 45 min, eventually fell asleep in his crib and only woke up once in the night to nurse
-the next few nights were pretty much the same except that he cried for progressively shorter and shorter periods of time and for the most part slept in his crib for most of the night.  there were a few times over the next several days that he woke up at 1 or 3 am and wouldn't go back to sleep so i brought him back into bed so we could all get some sleep.  also in this time he learned how to pull himself up to standing and we caught him several times standing and trying to get over the top of the rail.
-on night 7 he cried for over an hour, it was awful.  he was so upset.  so i ended up nursing him in our bed and then when he fell asleep i transferred him to his crib
-the next night he only cried for 20 min and slept the entire night in his crib, in fact, i had to wake him up at 7:45 the next morning.  that has never happened before.
-the next few nights were more of the same, him crying for about 30 min or so. oh and we lowered his crib so that he wouldn't be able to launch himself out of it. i decided at this point, since it had been about 10 nights of this routine and we didn't seem to be progressing, that i would modify the method.  after re-reading a few chapters of the book "No-Cry Sleep Solution" i decided that after i put him in the crib, i would walk out of the room for 5 min, then come back in, pat his back and sing to him and then stay in the room and pat his back again if he starts crying.  eventually i will move myself closer to the door until i'm out of the room.  i decided to try this method since we weren't progressing with the ferber method and it seemed like he calmed down and was able to sleep faster when i was in the room.  so since trying that it seems to have worked better, he cries for 20-35 minutes so far, before falling to sleep.
so, it's been 12 days of that.  i will continue to try this new method for another week or so and see where we are with it.  hopefully it gets better, but so far, it is really stressful.  the goal is that i can put him in his crib and he will just fall asleep in a a few minutes without crying his face off.  i hope that happens soon, here.  i knew deep in my being that he probably wouldn't take well to the cry it out/ferber method, but it seems to work for so many people so i thought that i would give it a try.  so, please send positive thoughts our way and feel free to comment with advice and/or your experience.  i would really appreciate it! thanks!