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I'm a working mom and DD is looked after by her grandma (DH's mom) when I'm at work. DD naps pretty well (anywhere between 90 minutes to 2.5 hours) and is done with it by 2pm most days, somedays 3pm. Her nights are another story. Because she was so difficult to put to sleep, her bedtime was anywhere between 9pm and 10:30pm!! She was extremely colicky as an infant and until recently used to take 2.5 hours to put to sleep at night (rocking, singing, holding her and dancing around the room). When she turned 18 months I weaned her off the breast and her sleep improved immediately. However, she was terrible at taking cows milk and I was worried sick about her not getting the calcium she needs. So against my better judgement I introduced her to the bottle. Her milk intake improved dramatically, but her sleep went downhill and in a couple of weeks she was back to waking every 2 hours for a bottle. 

So, after nearly 2 years of waking every two hours to feed/rock/sing my DD to sleep, I downloaded Nicole's sleep program. She provides a lot of useful ideas, so I came up with a variation that I feel suits me. Two nights ago, at her 2 am waking I lay next to her in bed (we co sleep) and let her cry till she fell back asleep. She slept through the rest of the night, but woke really early (5am) and was cranky and seemed to remember what happened the previous night. She took a very short nap (less than an hour) that day, but STTN. Woke up at 6am cranky again, took an early nap (10am-11:30am) and slept last night only by 9:30pm. Woke up at 2:30am and wanted a bottle. I'm not sure if I should have just let her cry, but I was so confused if she might actually be hungry from being used to drinking every 2 hours. So she drank, and went back to sleep till about 7am. She woke up happy this morning, but now her Grandma tells me she was very sleepy by 10am and is taking a nap. 

I'm really confused. I cant tell if this is going well or not. The last 2 nights she has gone to sleep pretty easily if I just lay next to her in bed, but why did she wake up last night? Should I give her a bottle once a night? Is she suddenly needing to sleep more? Why?

HEEEEEELP!!

I'm by no means qualified to respond to this (I'm at 12 months and zero sleep at this point) – but have you tried offering water when she wakes up and you think she may be thirsty?  It could well be that she's formed the habit of waking for milk even though she doesn't need it – if you weaned her away from that behaviour by offering water instead she may stop waking because it's not an incentive if she only gets water.