Our daughter had gotten into this same type of habit and thats exactly what it is, is a habit that kids form as everything for them is about routine so even waking up after you put her to bed already she repeats because thats what they do.  I also had to be the sole person to put my daughter to bed otherwise it was a meltdown.  My husband did not believe in the cry it out method, as he couldnt stand to listen to her cry, however as she kept getting bigger and bigger it was just too much work for me.  At 8 months i told my husband enough was enough and we had to have her cry it out and although he wanted to get up and get her we had to wait otherwise our life would always be the same way.  We did a similar shorter version of our bedtime routine and then put her in her crib she cried it out for an hour and half the first night, an hour the 2nd, 45 minutes the 3rd, and so on until after the 6th night it was about 2 minutes and she had started getting used to the fact that we would not be going in to pick her up and do the 2nd try of getting her down for the evening and not doing the big ordeal of jumping up and down, rocking her to bed anymore.  After that life became so pleasant, it is a very tough week but a load easier on life now.  My husband was also able to put her down after this, now my daughter is 18 months, and now grabs her nighttime bunny, pulls her pajamas out of her dresser, brings us a diaper and basically lets us know she is ready for bed, we make her a bottle of milk, sit in the rocking chair until shes finished it, brush her teeth and away she goes into big girl bed at 9pm and sleeps until 8am when she gets up out of bed, comes to my room and wakes me up.  I know it is horrible to sit there listening to your kid scream but from anyone else i have talked to also this is the only way you can break the habit you have already created.  

 Both my boys do the same thing with waking shortly after going to bed and then sleeping deeply. I think it's fairly normal as is your baby only going to bed for her Mom. Both issues will resolve in a few more months. It's so good that she's sleeping the rest of the night. Yay! When she's older and on a more consistent schedule she should grow out of it or you may choose to let her cry through the transition. For my oldest it was a matter of making his bedtime even earlier for a few weeks. Try putting her to bed around 5:30/6:00. I know it sounds early and you may have to give 1 extra night feed but it just may work. Good luck!

Wow my heart goes out to you really.  Here's my best advice...take it for what it's worth as like someone said all kids are different and have different temperments.  I had read the baby whisperer when my daughter was approx 3 weeks old and started applying her EASY method (which is not easy) early on.  I had the same issues when she was 1 -  3 months old where she would be put to down to sleep at around 8pm and then wake about a half hour - hour later crying.  But thankfully by 3 months this settled down and then would sleep for 8 hours straight.  By six months she was thankfully sleeping through the night 12 hours (except for the dreaded teething).  She is now three and sleeps through the night and it is the rare event (and I do mean rare) that she wakes in the middle of the night (happy child/happy mom ;-)).

A few things I did which may or may not work for you but worth a try:

1)  Consistency with a routine, even when it gets difficult.  By this I mean I would feed her, bathe her, stories and then bed by 7pm.  This is still the routine I follow and she knows once stories end it is time for bed.  Be firm because I found as she got older she did resist but if I held firm after a while she would go back to her routine as long as I was firm.

2)  I hate letting her cry it out and actually the baby whisperer didn't advocate this either.  Instead of just walking away for the first little while (I think the first 7 months or so) if she was hysterical I would pick her up until she settled down a bit and then put her back in her crib and shush her to sleep.  If got got hysterical again I would repeat.  This way she would know I was not leaving her alone or abandoning her and would help her develop healthy sleep habits.  I did not play with her or feed her - just settled her and then put her back to bed in her crib.  That way she gets the message that this is sleep time not a nap.  It really did take a long time - I think I would spend an hour or so at times doing this...but the payoff for me worked. 

3)  I would do a dream feed at around 11pm (I'm guessing because I started so early doing this that by 6 1/2 months I didn't need to do this anymore?)  For me I would put her to sleep at around 7pm.  At 11pm when she was still sleeping either myself of my husband would gently pick her up (not wake her) and feed her.  Yes you read it right.  When babies are young they have that natural sucking reflex so she would start sucking the minute the bottle hit her lips.  She would eat (ie dream feed) while sleeping and then I would put her gently back to bed - no diaper change, no burping.  This was a godsend because she wouldn't wake hungry at around 4 or 5 am AND she wasn't getting into a habit of waking at 11pm either.  Eventually like I said I managed to get rid of the dream feed and she would sleep 12 hours.

The key for most issues I find with my daughter is consistency and keeping it up.  It may take a month or more but if you keep at it - eventually it works.   There are a number of great books out there on sleep - the baby whisperer worked for me and it felt right for me....

Good luck and try not to stress too much.  As everyone probably tells you kids outgrow things and go through phases - no matter how frustrating it is now.

My little guy is 7.5 months and we are having some sleep issues as well.  He used to sleep for at least 5 or 6 six hours before waking to eat.  Now he is pretty much awake every two hours.  He wants to spend the entire night in bed with us. I have to say that I've done a LOT of reading and really, there are just soooo many opinions about babies and sleep!  No consistent information about how long, whether to feed, where to sleep and so on.  I really believe now that every baby is different and every family is different so there just isn't one solution that fits all.  It was hard to decide what to do but we've opted to try partial cosleeping.  So we are trying to get him to sleep in the crib from bedtime 7:30 or 8pm until at least 3am.  When he wakes up either my husband or I do what it takes to calm him down and get him back into the crib sleeping.  It's been a long few nights but he is starting to go for longer stretches now.  At least 3 to 5 hours.  At around 3am we do bring him into our bed and he can nurse if he wants to.  I'm hoping if we stick with this for the rest of this week, by next week things will be better.  I was tempted to try Cry it out and we may still get to that point but for now, based on our feelings and all my reading we want to try gentler methods and respect the fact that our little one craves human interaction which really, we all do.  So hopefully things will work out but it sure is exhausting and frustrating at times!  Its so good to share ideas and read what others are doing though.  Reminds us we are not alone!

My husband had a hard time with the cosleeping in the beginning too but he has come around a bit recently.  Although, because he snores off and on, the baby and I end up in the spare room a lot.  We are still having a hard time with the staying asleep though.. last night he was up at 10pm, 11pm, 12:30am until 2:30am, then again at 5am and 6am... Just don't understand it!  It's hard to know exactly what is going on.  We are pretty sure he is teething but a lot of the time that he wakes up he isn't really crying, just wants to be near someone... it's hard to stick with putting him back in his crib when i'm so tired and just want to sleep.  I hope he starts to sleep longer stretches soon!