I hate bedtimes (and so does my son)!

Another night, another bout of crying. Tonight is the worst ever. Screaming. I have never heard him scream like that.

We are trying to get him to go to sleep without his dummy because he needs to be able to get himself to sleep, especially if he wakes in the night. But I'm wondering whether it's a good idea now as he is finding it so traumatic. If he has learned anything tonight it is probably that bedtime is to be feared and hated more than ever. He has been screaming for 20 minutes now at full volume, only relenting briefly when Hayley picked him up and calmed him. I've had to leave because I can't bear it. I can still hear him on the monitor but it's not quite as terrible.

I HATE this uncerainty about what to do and I know Hayley feels the same. Where are all the God-damned so-called professionals who are supposed to advise us on how to handle this?

Should we give him his dummy to go to sleep?
Should we make him get used to going to sleep without out it?
Can we leave him to cry when he won't go to sleep?
How long can we leave him to cry?
At what point is he too upset to be left?
Are we teaching him that to cry brings us back if we always respond straight away?
Are we cruel if we don't respond straight away?
Are we doing the wrong thing if we don't teach him to fall asleep by himself?
Are we doing the wrong thing if we don't stay with him to re-assure him as he tries to fall asleep?

All we have is questions and no-one is giving us answers. I swear that if any health visitor dares to tell me "all babies are different" I might swing for them!

Twenty five minutes of crying now and I can hear he has made himself hoarse from screaming.

Retrospective note (the next day)
He went to sleep not long after this post and then slept all night. Maybe he was exhausted. Or maybe he was under the weather and we didn't spot it. Maybe he just got so worked up that it took longer to calm him down. It's hard to tell. He certainly seemed to need lots of attention. Maybe that's the trick: lots of re-assurance for him. That's what we are going to try now anyway. It has been our policy up to recently anyway. Perhaps it really is too soon to try anything different.