When LO was younger he would do drowsy but awake. For the last several weeks he cries like crazy as soon as he hits the crib. We tried to let him CIO once but I think he almost had a heart attack. Since then we've been letting him lay on our bed & we wait until he's asleep to put him in his crib. Sometimes it takes 20 minutes & it's getting old. Btw he's actually just shy of 6 months old despite my ticker. Help!!!

TIA
Re: How do you put LO to bed?
We have to do the same thing! If we put him in the crib, he tosses and turns but if we put him on our bed, he falls asleep pretty quickly. At least we've stopped having to put him in our bed in the middle of the night. That wasn't fun! I've convinced myself it's a Wonder Weeks thing.
I don't have any advice on getting him to sleep sooner, but you are not alone!
We do our routine of bath, PJs, vitamin, brush teeth, nurse, then read in the glider and rock/sing songs to mellow him out. He's so busy now that he's on the go that I think he likes taking the time to just relax before going down. Some nights he's drowsy when I put him down, others he's still wide awake. For the most part he'll go down relatively easy...maybe a little crying...but some nights he puts up a fight, I think if he's overtired. Then I just will nurse him some more in case he's still hungry or rock him a little longer. Probably 90% of the time he goes in his bed still awake.
I just finished putting her to bed
For the past week, I've been trying a new way. It's good so far.
Now, around 8:30 or so, when Abigail starts rubbing her eyes (which is the sweetest thing ever!!) and yawning, I stop whatever I'm doing and we go lay down. I nurse her until she goes to sleep. Tonight it took 30 minutes. It can take as few as ten sometimes. I need to get her to where she doesn't depend on nursing to go to sleep.
Before last week, we were up as late as 10 fighting with each other. We'd nurse a while, then she'd fuss a while, then we'd play a while, then we'd watch Baby Einstein a while...
I'm glad it finally clicked that she was over-tired, and that's why bedtime was a nightmare!
We've always done the same thing at bed from day 1. DD gets a bottle, fed to her in her dark room, then put to bed. We leave the room and don't go back in unless she's crying. She'll put herself to sleep. Now we have to go in 3-4 times per night before she falls asleep because she'll roll onto her stomach and cry.
Sorry your having a hard time...we had issues with DS and we brought him into our bed at an early age. It only got harder and harder to get him out of our bed. Finally a few months ago, he will sleep in his own bed all night. It took a lot of work to make that transition. So, although it makes things easier now, it may be harder down the road to get her out of your bed. Do what you have to do...I definitely understand!
We have 15-20 minutes of wind down time (read books, sing a song, quiet play with toys - in her room and on the floor), then nurse, then rock to sleep, then lay her down in her crib and hope (while saying fifty-bajillion prayers all in one nano-second) that she stays asleep. It is a total no-go if we put her down drowsy but awake. All he!! breaks loose. I'm working on trying to get DH on board for some sleep training, because the middle of the night wakeups are so frequent it's just plain ridiculous. I'm a freaking zombie.
We have two different nighttime routines:
1)When DH is home (and not in work/school): playtime for 1/2 hour, baths (the 2 boys together in the big tub), the we sit in our bedroom and I rock DS2 in the glider with a bottle while DH reads a book to DS1 on our bed, then we put them to bed around 8:30.
2)When DH is not home: complete chaos! lol