'Gentle' sleep training...quite long, sorry

[thetoothlessfairy]

It's a bank holiday weekend, so we've decided to finally try some sort of sleep training on 15-month-old ds. So, I need some on advice on how to go about it in the least brutal way, and I'm too tight to buy yet another book on babies. Which is where Mumsnet comes in.
DS is a fairly clingy/high-need baby. At the moment, he has a bath at about 7pm, warm milk then bed. Sometimes he goes straight to sleep, sometimes he gets over-excited and just wants to play, sometimes he gets upset. If we try leave him to settle himslef, he gets hysterical, although I assume this is something we'll have to grin and bear. he will sometimes (about once a month) sleep through til about 5am, but he's generally up at least once, anytime between 2am and 4am, at which point we've been bringing him into our bed for our own sakes as much as anything. Oh, and when he wakes up, he always starts crying immediately, as if the transition is very sudden and scares him.
So, how do we go about it?

[lingle]

Get "The No Cry Sleep Solution" from the library.