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I don't think you're crazy at all. We went through a terrible period around then. My DD wouldn't sleep unless she was being held. My pediatrician gave us the go ahead to sleep train around that age because physically my daughter did not need to eat during the middle of the night. And she was a big baby! She weight around 14.5 lbs then. As long as yours is gaining weight well, I wouldn't feel bad about sleep training. 1.5-2 hours isn't sustainable as a parent.

I'm hoping @sweetiepie and @jape14 will chime in as I know both sleep trained at 4 months. I don't want to speak for @jape14, but I actually know her son and he's freaking awesome / a unicorn sleeper now so I say go for it. I cannot imagine your DS is well rested waking up that often and it sounds like he can't self soothe without nursing. An inability to self soothe won't just go away, in my experience.

I would, however, at that age go about it with great structure. If you are going to sleep train I would identify a method and be 100% behind it. Consistency is key.

As @LBee: said, we sleep trained early (right at 4 months - DS went through the 4-month sleep regression early at 3.5 months) and it was life changing! Here is a novel I've copied/condensed from other sleep training posts where I've commented:

We started at 4 months on the nose because his sleep was absolutely atrocious and rocking, swaddling, etc. stopped working. It was taking a long time to get him to fall asleep, even with rocking and swaddling, and he'd often wake up shortly after we put him down for the night. He was also having random MOTN wakeups (not to eat) so we were hoping by teaching him how to fall asleep on his own, those would improve as well. We also noticed (on an overnight car trip home over Christmas) that he was started to suck his thumb and use a lovey to self-soothe, so it seemed like a good time to try.

We did Ferber, using the intervals from the book (although I think we did the first night at 1/3/5 instead of 3/5/10 or something like that). We got rid of the swaddle and Merlin suit, but neither thing was helping him sleep much anyway.
The main thing was that we were trying to remove the nurse to sleep association. The way we did it is we started pairing a song with the bedtime feeding - just singing the same song over and over while I nursed him, toward the end of the session when he was getting drowsy. Over time, he started associating the song with sleep, and we were able to shift the song back so that our routine ended up being: change diaper, feed, put in sleep sack (in case he fell asleep nursing, this would wake him back up), down in crib, give him his lovey, sing song, go to sleep. The key is to pair the cue you want to associate with sleep (e.g., a song) with the existing sleep cue (i.e., feeding) and then gradually separate them. (I'm a psychologist so this approach was super intuitive to me -- just like what you learn in a freshman psych course.)

The first night, he cried for maybe 15-20 minutes when we put him down. He got the falling asleep thing pretty quickly and within 3ish nights he basically went right to sleep. Before we sleep trained, he would not go to sleep before 8 or 8:30 and would often wake back up within 30 minutes of being put down. After sleep training, he went to sleep at 7:15-7:30 every night. We reduced MOTN wakings and he was able put himself back to sleep if he did wake up (not to eat). And we were able to put him down awake for naps too. (We weren't planning on nap training but it inadvertently worked.)

Re: the MOTN feedings, we basically just picked a cutoff time (I think it was 2am), and my husband would Ferber for any wakeups before that time (he only needed to a handful of times). For the first two weeks, he was still doing 2 MOTN feedings, but after that, he went down to one, and that feeding shortened in length pretty significantly. He kept that one until he was about 7.5 months old and regularly eating enough during the day to stay full (he had reflux so he was a bit of a snacker until that was fully under control -- this was around the time he went off his meds).

I hope this helps! Babies and their mamas need sleep and for a lot of families, sleep training is a super effective way to make that happen.

Check out Precious Little Sleep: https://www.preciouslittlesleep.com/

Lots of good info and similar concepts with the sleep associations/cues. I have no experience with implementing it yet since my little is only 4 weeks old, but many friends swear by it and it's my plan for the future as needed. Good luck!

I'm on the other side of things and don't think you should sleep train until at least 6 months. You say almost 4 months so I'm assuming LO is younger than that? So the regression may still be on the horizon and undo everything you do. If you really want, I would only do it with pediatrician's advice first.

@Mamag511: no problem at all! reflux and sleep issues are such a pain to deal with and I have so been there. fingers crossed you get to a solution that works for you soon. I also agree with @starchild: that the precious little sleep website is really great.

I sleep trained even earlier, but only to get to bed. My kids don't like to be rocked and couldn't be moved once they fell asleep nursing and I refused to cosleep. Therefore, I did extinction training. Both kids only had 2 wake ups ever, and one was before I went to bed. Both kids dropped night feeds on their own and prior to 3 months old. The one advantage I have had is that neither has had any regressions. They are 3 and 11 months.

@Mamag511: Also, I had DH do the training. I think it helped not having boobs walk in to taunt/check on the babies. I totally left the house both times.

We consulted with a sleep trainer at 4 months, and she told us it would be totally ok. I ended up waiting a month but that’s just because I wasn’t emotionally ready. I felt like he still needed feedings overnight so we did a dream feed at 10 before I went to bed, and then I fed him at 4 when (if, I guess, but he always did until at least 8 months) he woke up.

Not at all; I sleep trained my twins at 3 months! They are now nearly 5 and continue to be pretty great sleepers. We tried a "gentle" method first and honestly, it made one of mine more upset so we wound up basically CIO with checks as that was quicker and less agitating. So even though I get the point about choosing a method, for us, the initial method didn't work for one of the kids so out the window it went. Our pediatrician was like, no harm in trying, might not work but who knows?

@Mamag511: here’s a great link about the so-called harms (aka the flawed “cortisol study” that was making the rounds): https://childrensmd.org/browse-by-age-group/newborn-infants/stress-cortisol-and-getting-your-baby-to-sleep/

This particular doctor recommends waiting until 6 months for most babies, but my pediatrician and many others are fine with 4 months if you use an age-appropriate method (e.g., Ferber), your child is gaining weight and eating appropriately during the day, and so forth.

(Disclaimer: I have a PhD in psychology and study self-regulation in children/adolescents so I am super sensitive to that cortisol study being misrepresented!)

(edit: sorry to belabor the point but seriously, that cortisol study was super flawed: https://www.google.com/amp/s/expectingscience.com/2016/04/21/the-middlemiss-study-tells-us-nothing-about-sleep-training-cry-it-out-or-infant-stress/amp/)

@jape14: agree with you, and I don’t have a PhD in anything but my thought is that a pediatrician literally has nothing to gain by giving the go ahead to sleep train. For example, they aren’t a consultant collecting a fee. So why would they ever say it was fine to do if it wasn’t? I trust my pediatrician wholeheartedly.

I also have a friend who has a masters in early childhood development and she has literally studied sleep training and the pros and cons of t weighed against the importance of sleep in a child and she actually became a sleep trainer/consultant because of it.

And lastly, it is well documented how important sleep is for kids. I don’t see how teaching them to sleep and be well-rested could possibly be a bad thing. ESPECIALLY if it’s impacting the parents’ health and well being. Parents are often discounted or fully omitted from the equation and it’s a shame.

@Mamag511: do what you feel is right for your baby. I sleep trained dd2 at 8 weeks. She has been through 2 regressions since then but we got through it fine. She's now a little over 6 months. Gaining weight and happy. And I'm sooo much happier!

I sleep trained DS at 7m and DD at 4m. With DS he was waking up every couple of hours and wanted to be fed back to sleep. I could handle that even though I was sleep deprived. Then he just decided to sleep for 20 minutes at a time and was crying no matter what we did so I let him cry it out. With DD she started waking up every time she lost the pacifier and I couldn't get any sleep. I was literally losing my mind from sleep deprivation.

She had been a great sleeper before the 4m regression so I decided to let her cry it out. Almost immediately she started sleeping better. No regrets here.

Both my kids are champion sleeper at 4 and 1.5. They sleep consistently through the night until about 7-8 depending on which kid.

@DesertDreams88: right, I should have added that he did say also, let them fuss for up to 20 minutes only. Using common sense and critical thinking help. Mine cried about 12 minutes each before sleeping soundly for 6 hours. Sounds like yours is different. I think “no harm in trying “ with a dose of common sense is true. Like, try, but if your kid vomits then obviously not ready. I didn’t interpret “trying” to be letting them cry for hours on end.
And honestly, when you have infant twins, somebody.is.always.crying! If not a baby, possibly one of the parents.