Sleep Debt

For the sake of the local songbird population we decided to fit The Cat with a bell.
So far this spring we have not had any incidence of the silly moggy bringing in anything vaguely resembling a dishmop with legs. Good for the local birds and good for Joseph. Not so good for us who are now sometimes woken up by The Cat having a scratch at 3am. We banned her from the bedroom some time ago, but you can still hear the noise through the door. Doesn't seem to bother Joseph, though.
He's had a couple of wobbly nights recently. We've got rather used to him sleeping well, he was giving us a good six ours plus a night from eight weeks old and I'm just not used to going without. I don't cope well when I've not had my eight hours.
Last Thursday a week ago, he just didn't want to be away from us. We could put him in the cot but if we left the room he would cry. We ended up with him sat on Andy's lap in the dark, hoping this would calm him down. By 9.30pm he seemed quieter and finally settled off. We slept all right and we just assumed that Joseph had missed me, as I'd been at work that day.
This week the same happened. I changed him and put him down and he seemed calm, but he did not settle. We could not eat our dinner in peace and the same procedure was tried. He did calm down slowly and he did finally go to sleep, but this was not the end of the nights events.
He woke up at twenty to one. I'd managed to get a couple of hours in, but that was to be all. He was crabby to a high degree, only when hugged would he calm down and as soon as he got near the cot again he would scream as if in a lot of pain.
He hadn't done a stealth poo and we couldn't think of any other reason for his discomfort. We gave him calpol which calmed him a little, but not enough. I ended up lying in bed and cuddling him and he seemed calm and happy, as long as I didn't move. As I lay there I couldn't help but think that we were breaking every rule in the Gina Ford book. The problem being that we had let him cry on his own for a while, but he just got more distressed. What do you do when your child just wont calm down?
We were at a loose end because we're just not used to it.
Last night he slept like a log. I slept like a log too, but Andy didn't. For some reason he woke early and couldn't get back to sleep again. I think it was The Cat, having her early morning stretch and scratch.