Sleep issues

I think almost every parent facing the issue of getting their child to fall asleep on their own at one point or another. With our first, S, it wasn't until after his first birthday we tried and eventually figured out what would work for him.
So what did we try...a pacifier to calm him, no luck. Talking to him or patty him and not picking him up, yeah right!!! (that never calmed him down) Crying, letting him cry 5 minutes then checking on him making sure he's ok, then adding 5 minutes to the time, so now 10 minutes, then another 5 after the next time you go in so 15, etc. etc. (that worked short term). What ended up working...laying him in bed, sitting in the room, but not interacting with him or looking at him and let him cry it out until he feel asleep.
Now with number 2, B, we are discussing it much earlier. She's teething and even harder to get to go to bed. It's not until at least 2 AM she's is down for good (except for a feeding here and there) until morning. Before that she'll be in a bed for an hour and then wake up screaming, that is if she doesn't wake up when we lay her down and start screaming immediately. Having it not be the first child also makes it tough because we worry about her crying/screaming waking up S and the last thing we want is to deal with 2 kids that aren't sleeping. After all how do you explain to a 3 year old why the baby gets to be up and watch TV with dad and not him.
So Wednesday I decided to start the process. How did it go? Nap one at 9:30 or I should say she was put in bed at that time. Less than 30 minutes later, asleep for 30 minutes (long enough for me to take a shower and get ready. Nap two put down at about 12:30ish, and yet again less than 30 minutes later asleep for at least 2 hours. And the crying was happening when S was trying to go down, nice to know that didn't affect him. Now bed time...another story. I've been in her room on the computer for at least 45 minutes and she's still going. This time she has learned to pull her self up so she is on her knees, so I have to keep on putting her down so she doesn't hurt herself by falling asleep like that or getting too tired if that were to happen. I'm on the verge of a headache, which my new glasses prescription isn't helping. There are moments of where I think she is going to calm down, but no not yet. I'm going to pull my hair out!!!
Yesterday she cried for less than 30 minutes for nap number one at 10:30, but only slept about 30 minutes and woke up, and of course as soon as I picked her up she was asleep again!!! So this time I hold her until I can lay her down. We went over to a friend's house and played games with several couples so we got home at about 10:30 WAY past the kids bed time, so we didn't try the whole falling asleep on your own. Last night I think was one of the toughest nights.
I know eventually it's going to pay off and I'll be able to lay my little angel down for bed awake and that is that, and she'll do the rest on her own with no crying. It's just a real struggle while you are in the process.
Wish me luck! Who knows how long this is going to take.