I night weaned with help of DH (yes, it made for some very tiring nights, but it didn't take all that long. We did it over a long weekend for starters, which helped). That did not help with getting DS to go to sleep by himself, though. It has been a very gradual process. He still sometimes likes one of us to lie next to him until he falls asleep. Actually, he probably always wants someone to do this, but some nights he is more insistant about it than others. We went through a period where we were not going to do this, but made everyone's life miserable, so we went back to doing it. (This was one of those pick your battles decisions and I decided that I would rather spend an extra 15 minutes with him at bedtime than an extra 45 dealing with a screaming toddler.) The interesting thing is that once we stopped fighting it, he has slowly stopped needing it. He is 2.5 now and often goes to sleep on his own.
Dorothy