8 month sleep regression/ separation anxiety

[Astrid7]

Hi there, I have an 8 month old boy, he’s always gone down in his cot well from sleep training we did at 4 months. He currently goes down ok in the day by himself and at 7pm but wakes around 9:30-10pm. I’ve been dream feeding him then anyway but now he’s waking before I do and crying inconsolably until around 1am when I finally get him to go back to sleep. The only thing that stops him is to bring him downstairs with us. However I don’t feel like this is a good thing to get into. I tried to keep him in the dark room last night but he just woke up 30 mins later and I gave in and brought him into bed at about 1:30am.
Anyone got any ideas or advice of how not to introduce bad sleep habits but how to get through this stage??! Everyone including my toddler is getting pretty tired!

[FATEdestiny]

Have you tried giving him a feed when he wakes? If it works and he settles - the answer is that he is hungry or thirsty so needs more milk/calories/water in the daytime.

[Feminist10101]

Surely trying to manage separation anxiety by avoiding him being with you is counter-productive? Like plastering a leg when you’ve broken an arm?

[Astrid7]

Yep I do feed him then anyway and it calms him for a bit but then he gets worked up again and doesn’t sleep. He’s exclusively bf but even boob doesn’t work!
I should say I’m not trying to avoid being with him, I’m cuddling him the whole time! I just find that practically co-sleeping doesn’t work for us in the long run, as nice as it is to have cuddles at night.