Sleeping was an issue for us in the beginning too, while he was newborn he would go down anywhere then things changed majorly. For a short time there he was up all day pretty much in my arms the whole time until i reliased that i had to do something about it. I read some books, searched the internet and went to a sleep settle class, from these i took the tips that i wanted to make use of. My first thing was to try and establish a routine and for me the feed, play & sleep definately made my son happy. Once we got it working...

My settling technique was to put him in bed awake after noticing tired signs (which was him starting to get a bit whingy) sit on the floor at the end of the cot (my son could not see me) and i would pat his leg. Not in a rhythmical patter because he would get to know that pattern. I would do it firm when he was crying but as he settled i would get lighter and do it less often. Just gradually remove myself from this without him even noticing that i had gone. I would do the same thing day and night, this sometimes meant sitting on the floor in his room for sometimes half an hour or more but eventually he self settled and this wasn't needed anymore at all.

Once we had all that under control he would show his tired sign i'd put him down without any tears at all and he'd settle himself quite happily. He also has a blankie and sucks his thumb which i'm sure helps a lot too.

My opinion was he just needed to be shown how and when he needed to sleep, like you have mentioned an over tired bub can be very unreasonable. I have such a happpy boy and there are never ever tears at bed time. My fear is i won't get the time to spend on doing this the second time around... we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

Good luck with the sleep, it makes for happier babies and happier parents.