FortuneHamster I'm sorry in advance if my post annoys you 
I totally agree that all babies are different I can only share my experience because it really bloody works for us :) LOL so I feel compelled to tell people because although they're all different, if it works for our baby it will work for some others.
I'll try to be brief but lowdown is:
DS is just 6 months, he's our first, exclusively breast fed. Refused to sleep in cot since 10 weeks when he outgrew his moses basket. The only place he would sleep was in bed with me, and even then he woke hourly every single night - sometimes more often. I fed him every time he woke because it was the only way he would settle. On a good night we were in bed from 9-5.30am but he would only really sleep for 6-7 hours. During the day I wasn't mindful of his naps and just let him fall asleep as and when he needed to. he never seemed tired. I was convinced that he was happy with the hours of sleep he was getting because he is such a happy baby. Everyone comments on how joyful he is! It was just nights that were awful.
Anyway, the upshot is it was getting worse and worse and I was saying things like 'it was a good night last night, all in all I got 3 and a half hours sleep'. People looked at me like I was mad. I tried making him stay in his cot one night, that resulted in me getting up and tending to him 37 times between 10pm and 5am. His cot was at the end of our bed but even so, I was depressed, exhausted and (tbh) very angry.
A friend contacted me via facebook because she recognised the poor night waking patterns and lack of napping. She had just gone through 7 months of this with her second child. She explained to that she really thought DS was overtired and suggested I try her routine. Now I am NOT a routine person, I am shambolic and impulsive, and not good with strict routines but I was desperate. Never read Gina Ford and mainly read all the gentle 'no cry' type books because the tough love thing isn't my bag. Anyway, I was not sure it would work as we tried before and could not get him to sleep at all, sometimes we'd be trying for 2 hours before he'd go off but now I realise that (in our case) it was because he was overtired already when we started trying!
So we started just last Thursday morning with the routine, and I'm not exaggerating here, my life has been transformed. He slept 8 hours last night from roughly 6-2, then I fed him because he stirred (and he deserved a cuddle!) then he fell asleep again at 2.30 and woke at 7.17. This on just the second night. He had never in his life slept more than 4 hours before. So far tonight he's been down since 6pm without stirring so its looking good. Anyway, its not rocket science but here's the routine:
Today was only day 3 so we're still working it out...
-7am (ish) wake up,
Breakfast
-8.30 calm and quiet milk feed then take up to cot and settle, even if he's not showing sleepy cues he is going off quicker every day, always within 20 minutes. He only sleeps for about 30 mins at the moment but again this is increasing every day. Today I took him out in the car for this nap as I was going shopping!
-1.5 hours after he wakes from early morning nap take up to cot and settle. Again, he only does about half an hour.
Lunch as soon as he wakes
- 1.5 hours after he wakes from mid morning nap I give him another milk feed and take upstairs to cot to settle, or take for walk in pram if its not raining! Today he did over an hour at this nap which is real progress.
Tea between 4-4.30
- 1.5 hours after he wakes from lunch time nap I take upstairs to cot to settle as above. He was fussing more at this naptime but today just went out like a light for 38 minutes.
Bed time - 6pm
An early bed time, no matter what time he wakes from his last nap (today it was 5.15) his bed time is now 6pm. It felt way too early but it really works for us, I nurse him before he goes in his cot.
Dream Feed - 10-10.30pm
Then I currently expect a full wake at around 2am, feed him, then he goes straight back off and I hope not to hear from him again until 7ish.
In between all of the above I obviously change nappies, play with him and continue to BF on demand.
Basically I'm not even waiting for sleepy cues because with my DS, once I see sleepy cues it is already too late and settling is difficult or impossible. He has gone from sleeping an average of 9 hours in 24 to 14 hours. Like I say, this is only day 3 so could all go horribly wrong, and I'm certainly NOT an expert on anything to do with babies but the results are too exciting to ignore. I hope I've not irritated anyone or gone on too much this is a very long post but even if it helps just one other person I would be so happy because I was going out of my mind with exhaustion.
Anyway, must sleep, DH is 'on duty' until 2am and then its me again!