LOL my 3 year old DS technically still does not self-settle!

DS was always fed to sleep (or DH would sometimes rock him to sleep in our rocking chair - he was too heavy to rock standing up!)...until he was about 18 months and moved into a big boy's bed and I was pregnant with DD and bfing was so uncomfortable for me I had to wean. So it was quite a big change all at once but the excitement of the big boy's bed was a distraction from the absence of breastfeeding and he got used to it pretty quickly.

However it was DH who did bedtime for at least a month exclusively to start off with so DS automatically knew no breastfeed was coming.

DS has always had his Music for Dreaming CD played since he was a baby so that remained a constant in his bedtime routine. Even though it was a new bed and it was Daddy putting him to bed, not Mummy, he knew that the music meant sleep time.

So I would suggest introducing a new "constant" that means sleepy time before removing something else. Consistency, consistency, consistency is what worked for DS.

DH instituted cup of warm milk after bathtime in the loungeroom, then story time in bed (rather than before the breastfeed) and then lying down next to DS, quiet soothing words and maybe a bit of patting if he fussed a bit but otherwise staying with him till he fell asleep. Even better, the move to the big boy's bed also coincided with the very first time DS slept through the entire night without waking for a bf in his entire life!

So we segued into lying down beside him till he fell asleep and we actually still do this now. Including story time he is always asleep in 20 minutes and it is a lovely way to finish the day for him and both DH and I enjoy the cuddles and watching him fall asleep. However since DD was born DS will usually insist I take him to bed, not Daddy, so poor Daddy, who instituted the whole new bedtime routine, hardly ever gets to enjoy it now.

We were quite rigid really, it was the same thing every single night so DS cottoned on and knew exactly what was coming very quickly. The first couple of weeks were the trickiest in terms of getting him used to the new idea but there certainly wasn't a lot of distress, maybe a a bit of whinging because things were different but certainly no full blown crying - neither of us believe in leaving our kids to cry.

I hope some people get some ideas from this (rather than wanting to lie down and die at the thought of feeding off to sleep for 18 months LOL).