The changes are typically met with protest because the child doesn’t actually realize they have the ability to settle themselves. Sleep is a skillset, that children learn, based on how they are ‘taught’ to go to sleep. So for 7 months, if they only fed to sleep, that’s all they know. They have to learn they have the skill, and once they do, each time they wake and re-settle happens faster and easier as the skill sharpens. The time in minutes varies, we have clients on night 1 that settle in 20 minutes and others that take 45. It’s not 100% tears though, it’s more of a spike in protest in response to changes, then a lull of eh-eh-ah-eh-ah-eh-ah type self-soothing in a valley, while they practice. Then another spike, for less time, and a longer lull {practice} in the valley. I typically see the spikes and valleys to sleep lessen by 50% every day, yielding a child settling independently at bedtime in under 10 minutes, sleeping through the night, and staying asleep until an appropriate time in the morning {with feeds overnight where they are age-appropriate for nutrition} in 3-5 days.