I leave the lamp on in DD's room between bedtime at 7pm and her dream feed at 10.30pm. After that the lamp goes off and she doesn't seem to mind but I use it to let her know where in the routine were up to (evening).

Perhaps the lamp will help your DD because she will know where she is when she wakes up?

We've just had a break through after about two months of struggling with sleep. Now when we put DD down for a nap or at bedtime, we wrap have a little walk and cuddle, then into bed and I sit on the floor so she can still see me, and put my hand through the bars of the cot and pat the mattress next to her head (quite hard to a heartbeat). It's takes about 20 minutes for her to nod off, she cries (she always cries when going to sleep -her way of winding down), then whinges, then puts her head to the side and goes to sleep. If she gets really worked up I pat really loud and make a shhhh-ing sound. If she wakes again I go back in and do the same and she goes straight back to sleep.

Before this I would pick her up when she cried, walk, pat, rock, sing and feed trying to get her to sleep, I now realise that crying isn't her needing me to pick her up, it's her winding down, so when I picked her up I just disrupted her - doh!