We tried a milder variation of "ferberizing" on our 16 mo. old when he was 6 mo. old. Similar to your situation, my son was up constantly through the night and I was thoroughly exhausted. In sum, I am very glad we did it. That said, I really struggled with the decision. I hated to try the strict "let em cry" strategy because it just felt contrary to our daytime relationship of him giving me cues and me responding. I felt like we had a trust between us and I would be breaking that trust by not responding to him. So . . . I read the Ferber book and first worked on weaning him off night nursing. That took a few weeks. Then we worked on the night awakenings. We introduced a transitional object (a blanket he now loves to death) and started trying to have him fall asleep on his own (no nursing to sleep or rocking to sleep). Then we started letting him cry. I can't remember the exact amount of time we left him but it was shorter intervals that Ferber recommended; although we did slowly increase the time between comforting him. We really only had 2 hard nights. Since then he has been a relatively good sleeper and I am so much more sane. I think it is a tough decision to make. I am sure it does cause the little ones some stress to cry, but there has to be a balance with the family and parental needs too. I try to keep my son from unneccessary stress, but also realize that I can't (and probably shouldn't) protect him from every stress of life. One last thought, Cortisol production does impact the sleep schedules. I guess this could cut two ways - I have chosen to look at it that because he has CAH which may impact his sleep patterns it is even more critical that he establish healthy sleep patterns and regular sleep times. Sorry this is such a long post but I realld researched this and talked to a lot of people when my son was young because we had so many issues with his sleep. Good luck.