How to put your baby to sleep

I just came back from a baby shower today for my friend. This made me think about before we had our daughter. Many people keep telling us to get a lot of sleep before she came. I understand what they said but until we had her, we didn't really get it.

We played games and gave my friend a note about motherhood's life. I thought about the sleepless nights we had. And would like to give her some ideas about this.

Many people told us many different ideas, what we tried and use is to let our baby cry. One of our friend gave us a book that she used for her 4 kids. All of her kids are really good kids and be right on the schedule. I and my husband were amazed when we visited their house. (That's why we decided to use their idea.)

Some more tips we used for our daughter are as below :

• We create a secure environment that allows sleep to overtake her. That is for helping her develop a healthy attitude about sleep. I read from some where that teaching your baby a restful attitude about sleep when they are young and both you and your children will sleep better when they are older. 
• As I mentioned above, we use Self-soothing method: Baby is put down awake and goes to sleep by himself. Parents offer intermittent comforting, but are not there when baby drifts off to sleep. So-called "Advantages": If baby learns to go to sleep by himself, he may be better able to put himself back to sleep without parental help, because he doesn't associate going to sleep with parents comforting. May be tough on baby, but eventually less exhausting for parents.
  Disadvantages:
  
  • Involves a few nights of let-baby-cry-it-out
  • Risks baby losing trust
  • Seldom works for high-need babies with persistent personalities
  • Overlooks medical reasons for nightwaking
  • Risks parents becoming less sensitive to baby's cries

Remember, in working out your own parenting-to-sleep techniques and rituals, be sensitive to the nighttime needs of your individual baby and remember your ultimate goal: to create a healthy sleep attitude in your baby and to get all family members a restful night's sleep.

What about you? What's the tips that you use? I would like to hear from you.