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We started CIO at 6 months with my son. However he barely cried. He would "fuss" for 10 minutes max and pass out. Maybe he does better with dad feeding him before bed. He probably associates you feeding him at bed time with comfort and just wants to play. By 6 months babies dont need to wake up and eat at night (not from a nutrition stand point. Babies are smart they start figuring out how to get mom and dad to give them what they want. Idk though that just my opinion. I could be wrong. I didnt breastfeed. My babies were formula fed and never had major sleep problems and slept the whole night before 6 months.

It sounds like he thinks the early part of the night is a nap, and bedtime is midnight. My oldest son was similar, and what worked best was accepting that he was sleeping 8 hours with a midnight bedtime. Then I gradually moved bedtime earlier, by putting him down earlier by 15 minute intervals. Waking him earlier would also help, but I could never do that.

We used the Ferber method at about 7 months old. It took a couple of weeks for 0 crying at bedtime, but it was a life saver. My son cried pretty hard for about the first 3 days at bedtime, but we saw improvements after the first night. He cried for 45 minutes the first night at bedtime and that was the worst of it. For a couple of weeks thereafter he would cry for a maximum of 15 minutes on a "bad" day, and 0 minutes on a good day. I think we were having problems with him going to sleep independently. He would wake up 1 hour after I put him down, and then again sometimes he would wake up at midnight/2am. He was already dropping middle of the night feedings at this point. I feel like that is important to mention, because sleep training is not meant for night weaning, it's meant for independent sleep. I will say though, if your child is on the way out of night feedings, then sleep training can help put that to an end. After we sleep trained, my son would wake up at 4am to eat and then go back to sleep till about 6/7am. This lasted till he was about 11/12 months old, and then I stopped the 4am feed. He started waking up earlier because of that, and it took a couple of weeks for him to readjust.

I suggest you read the book Precious Little Sleep, it helped a lot with our sleep struggles, and it is a pretty easy read too.

This is classic sleep association behavior. The quickest and easiest way to fix this problem is to let him cry it out. Honestly I would be surprised if you don't notice a complete change in behavior after only two nights, and sleeping through the night after four nights. It will happen that quickly. But you have to stand firm. Let him learn how to fall asleep on his own. It's a gift you are giving him that will serve him his whole life.

@pachamama: I tried all the "gentle" sleep training methods first ( before doing Ferber) and what I learned is that there is no cry free method of sleep training no matter how "gentle" it is. Babies don't like change, and the way they protest it is by crying. The book I read had lots of gentle methods that you try first before doing graduated extinction (Ferber), and I tried all of them. By the time I did Ferber, I felt ok knowing that I really did try everything before letting him cry for increasing intervals.

Same as above and we did the sleep lady shuffle with a sleep consultant at 7 months for this. We didn’t have as many wakes before midnight but 4-5 overnight was typical. We didn’t think he had a feed to sleep associate but he did and we had to break him of the paci as well. Changed up the bedtime routine to bath, bottle, story, book and not let him fall asleep eating, then we stayed in the room with him until he fell asleep. 3 nights beside the crib, 3 nights slightly away, 3 nights near the crib and then on the 10th night we left. Night wakes we waited 10 mins of crying then also sat in the room until he resettled. It worked eventually but it was definitely hard and he cried quite a bit but way worth it as he puts himself to sleep now and STTN most nights with one wake occasionally (he’s 9 mo now)

@pachamama: surprisingly yes. My oldest was much easier to calm but my youngest is a tough one. He’s stubborn and always alert to everything so besides nursing it was hard to get him back down if he woke. And he is effing looooud. But basically you just sit and ignore them unless they get super ramped up. Bedtime was usually 10-15 mins of him futzing around and then asleep. The first few night wakes were horrible and he would take 1-1.5 hrs to fall back asleep. But then it clicked and it’s been good.