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I commiserate with you. We went through basically the exact scenario you're describing with my DD at around 4 months. She wouldn't sleep unless was held/rocked/nursed. It nearly broke me. Ultimately, we chose to sleep train using the Ferber method at around 4.5 months. I read his entire book cover to cover and then we did it. It changed my life and I cannot overstate that. Her sleep is not perfect and we're still working on a few things, but she goes down very easily now at 7 pm (versus a 1-2 hour extravaganza) and generally only has 1 wakeup to eat around 2-3 am. (I didn't feel comfortable night weaning just yet). She sleeps until around 6. It took about 4 days to see a MAJOR difference.

Take turns with your husband sitting by the monitor and go in to nurse at whatever intervals you deem fit. I don't know what temperament your son has - if checks work or if it needs to be extinction - but he's using you as the soother to get back to sleep so he needs to like figure out a paci or finger sucking or snuggling a lovey or something. My first son took a lovey and chewed on it. My second is a finger sucker.

When we sleeptrained our insane firstborn my husband took it on and sat up listening to him cry with the monitor while I hid in another room with ear plugs and white noise. And then I would come and nurse at 3 hour intervals. It sucked for 3-4 days, but by the end of a week it was so much better. We got down to 2 night wakings that went down to 1 very quickly and then 9 hours - all within a few weeks.

@Silva: Don't hang your head! The exhaustion makes everything seem impossible, but you guys will figure it out.

Do you have any thoughts on what kind of sleep training you want to try? My best advice (just recycled advice from SweetiePie and Gingerbebe ) is to choose a method that you think will be successful based on your baby's temperament, and *stick with it*--do not give in when the going gets tough (it will get tough). It's really unfair and confusing to the baby to be inconsistent and give in to the crying and go "save" him if you've decided to CIO--that is something I had to remind myself 1000 times when we were doing it.

If you are concerned about safety, can you lean on your husband to reassure you, and if you can't stand it, can he be the one to watch the monitor?

We gave Ferber checks a fair shot and it just made our baby more upset, so we ended up doing full-on extinction about a month ago. It was a rough couple of weeks of nights where he cried for hours, followed by nights where he slept 11 hours straight, back and forth, but he sorted it out and is consistently sleeping now, and we are ALL doing miles better. His temperament has improved so much.

You will get there!

No advice as our sleep issues were (are-grr!) different. Each baby is different, so don't feel bad you have to post about your little guy too.

@Silva: Both my boys had reflux and my firstborn who had the sleep issues had it the worst. DH has GERD pretty badly as does my dad so it was a genetic thing. However having managed DH's reflux for so long we knew instantly when the medication clicked for DS1. He was on Prevacid and DS2 was on Prilosec. Zantac was garbage. Once they were on the right meds they would spit up but we could rest because we knew it didn't burn and they were just happier. But when we were on Zantac I knew it wasn't working because they would be fussy at night and waking every 45 minutes or less. The constant snacking issue was a big prob for DS1 too because of the reflux. Slow nipple, small portions, spitting up. Ugh. Nursing wasn't much better - he would fall asleep almost instantly and wouldn't get enough to eat so he would be up around the clock. (It's why his sleep was garbage - he'd like never slept very long ever in his life). He took bigger feeds once his meds were right and we got him to 4oz feeds then 5oz within a month of starting Prevacid. That was also when we trained (when we were sure the Prevacid was working).

@Silva: I do mix in 50/50 formula for his bedtime feed (and usually one daytime feed)--not because I think it really helps him sleep longer, but because he eats about 30 oz/day and even though I'm really committed to breastfeeding, I just can't keep up. I think he's getting about 20% of his calories from formula--we use Similac, and at some point early on I just dismissed myself from feeling guilty/torn about that decision (granted our boo doesn't have reflux or sensitivities, so that has made choices about feeding easier).

Maybe if your little guy isn't eating very much at any given time, you could try stretching out the time between "supper" feed and Bedtime feed, like maybe do a lighter-than-usual feed at 4:30pm for supper, and then offer a BIG bottle at 7:30pm and see how much you can get him to take.

We do dream feeds sometimes (maybe twice a week on average?) depending on how much he ate during the day. They usually work, although a couple times I've woken him up and it's backfired. a lot of women on HB seem to have done them with success for months though!

I don't have any advice but I wanted to tell you that in my son's first two years we paid somebody to help us with his sleep THREE SEPARATE TIMES. So don't feel bad about asking for more help.

I will say that our doc encouraged us to try any training for at least 7 days, knowing that the first two nights would be horrible, the 3rd & 4th would be better, the 5th & 6th would be back to horrible, and the 7th is when things might start clicking.

Removing food from bedtime really helped us, but we still majorly struggle with sleep with our 3 year old. I feel for you - I know it's so, so hard.

He sounds likes a lot like what L has been going through. There was a point a few weeks ago where she became so addicted to the paci she wouldn't sleep without it. But when she went into a deep sleep it would fall out and she'd wake up screaming. She also has suddenly become aware of object permanence. We had a horrible night last week where she kept waking up the second she hit the crib and screaming.

We resolved with the paci problem with CIO. The rule is no paci to go to sleep in the crib. We still use it in the carseat and around the house during the day. And my new rule is no more feeding to sleep (thanks to object permanence). I feed her, then I change her and put her in the crib.

I also try to make sure she gets enough food in her for me to feel like she's capable of going long stretches at night. I've started doing a bottle some nights, but it's also really important that throughout the day she eat enough. She tends to be a snacker too, and daycare gets frustrated with how slow she is on her bottles.

It seems like you (just like us) have a few issues to tackle.
For one, make sure he eats enough. Sometimes you have to stretch out feedings to make them hungrier. You can try to get them spaced out a few minutes at a time with distraction or pacifiers or whatever. If he's eating enough during the day he doesn't need to be fed an hour after he goes down. He's just using you as his self-soothing mechanism. Lily was doing this all the time, she'd wake up screaming and after a few minutes I'd go in and feed her and she pretty much passed out as soon as she was latched.

When you're sure he's eaten enough, then my suggestion is to CIO and not feed him for a set amount of time, like 3 hours. In this case you might need to trade down associations if you can't stop cold turkey. Like rocking back to sleep instead of feeding.

I wonder if he's just not tired? At six months old he might be ready for three naps and longer awake time. At six months my son would have woken up from his last nap about the same time but not been in bed until 7.

@erinbaderin: I was just about to suggest the same thing about the number of naps (although it's the aggregate of sleep time to balance out too) . . . My almost 6 month old usually takes 3 naps: (1) a short early morning nap about 1.5 hours after he's up (he usually wakes between 6:30 and 7); (2) a late morning nap; and (3) an afternoon nap. Then we start to get ready for bed around 5:30, and he has his last bottle between 5:45 and 6, and then he's down between 6 and 6:30 for the night (although I try to keep it closer to 6/6:15).

@Silva: My little guy has reflux too. For his bedtime bottle, I add oatmeal (1-2 tsp for every ounce of milk, as recommended by our Ped GI--I do one rounded tsp for every ounce). I did not do oatmeal/cereal with my first, so I was a little hesitant to try it. It really seems to help.

@Silva: That's so exhausting. I think you're on the right track and making good progress! I definitely have my *fx* for you! We are still working a few kinks out too, but it is so much better than what it was (we did a few days of CIO with checks), but we are down from 8-9 wakeups to 1-2 wakeups (when he's not sick) , and it's so much more manageable too (easier to put him down and to re-settle him during the night).

@SweetiePie: it's called an extinction burst -- @Silva: this is when they seem to start to get better and then suddenly it's worse than ever. actually just thinking maybe you're the expert on this since you work with people with addiction? anyway, as applied to baby (non)sleep, for us, when we did extinction, first 2 nights were bad, nights 3-4 were perfect, and night 5 was the extinction burst--he cried FOUR hours straight, it was the worst night of all of our lives. but immediately after that it got much better, and I'm glad we powered through it instead of negating all that work and giving in and going back to zombie land.
anyway just reading your update--wow to the first 4.5 hours since august, mama in my totally biased, not-expert opinion, 45 minutes of crying is (relatively) not so bad for the first time, and it sounds like he responded *really* well to it, as these things go. I hope you can lean on your husband and get a little more rest. keep us posted

eta!
https://www.preciouslittlesleep.com/extinction-burst/

@Silva: yeah, it is really tough to go through (not to mention unpleasant) in the same room. I'm still so glad we did it for all of the above reasons, but it's not the silver bullet I thought it would be--we've gone through a couple of spurts of a few crappy nights in a row (in one right now, actually). I'm glad for you that you've got some support from your husband--are you relieved to pass the baton? I hope the baby does great and gets some sleep, too and PS did you decide to try the tank-up bottle of pumped milk?

@Silva: oh good!! we haven't started solids at all yet over here, gotta get on that. hope tonight goes well for you guys.

@Silva: that's great!! Sounds like a best possible outcome and glad you're feeling groovy. Marathon running after four hours= You are probably better at running on fumes than like a green beret at this point.