6 Month old - Feed to sleep no longer working, CIO?

[goodname]

So sleep horror here from DS2 who is 6 months old, I have mostly been feeding him to sleep which I know from experience is not a great plan however it was all that worked. Lately he has been waking when I put him down and then refusing to feed or sleep but being really grumpy, crying a lot. Cue us walking around with him and trying to feed him intermittently for hours, Friday night I had had enough, I could not stop him crying so ended up putting him down in bed and leaving him. 7 minutes later he was asleep and only woke once all night!!!!! On sat we were out later than normal bedtime and when we came home, he went to sleep after a brief feed, however he was up a lot in the night. Tonight I wasnt sure what to do, I fed him to sleep as normal but he woke up after 5 minutes and I had not had dinner or tidied up or done my tesco order yet so thought I would leave him to cry again and see if it works quickly. However after 20 minutes he was still screaming, thought it would be a waste to give up but it was horrible horrible, after 30 mins dh went in again to check and ended up cuddling him to sleep in a couple of mins (not something that has ever worked before)
So what do I do now, never planned to do cry it out but it seems to have happened on its own sort of and nothing else is working anyway? AHH help please tell me I am not evil
BTW have never left ds1 to cry and he is still terrible at 2 1/2 which may be motivating me a little

could you not try the in-between method of controlled crying where you go in at regular intervals (starting at just a few minutes) rather than just leaving him to cry? Or you could try a gradual withdrawal method or pick up/put down. There are a lot of things to try that are kinder than CIO.

You can't go straight from feeding to sleep to crying it out! :(

There might be something else going on - teething? DS always used to refuse to feed if he was teething, but he'd be soo tired and grumpy. Teething gel or those powders used to help, or sometimes pushing him in his pram back and forth (and then transferring to bed).

Or if DH is around at bedtime, maybe switch over to him now? You could do final feed before he takes him up and then he can try cuddling or one of the other things - puck up put down or shush pat or whatever they're called.

Mmmm, I think there's a difference between CIO and putting a clean, fed, winded baby in a cot and going to do something for 5 or 7 mins to see if he settles himself.
I've HAD to do this with dd2 as I need to do dd1 teeth etc and 99%of the time she's asleep by the time I go back. I don't believe I'm doing CIO.

You are not evil but that is bloody harsh on a 6 month old. He is probably teething.

When feeding to sleep stops working its an arse. When it stopped with DS ( now 6 1/2 months) I had to leave him alone as he will not sleep if I'm in the room with him. He will not sleep if I cuddle him, rock him, anything. He generally cries at bedtime when he's eaten enough, and cries till I put him in his cot and leave him alone! However we have nights like last night where he sobbed inconsolably and I think he had tummy ache as we had a couple of evening wakings which we haven't had for a month, and he sobbed and sobbed each time. So I cuddled him until he stopped crying and then put him in his cot, calm but awake and he went off. I think a tired cry is quite different from an 'ow ow ow mummy it hurts' cry, so follow your instincts I think.

Thats quite different from just leaving him for 30 mins, to me the fact the baby went to sleep quickly when cuddled said something..

Give him a cuddle and something for his teeth :) it will pass

I didn't just leave home, dh went in and tried to comfort him,then went out again, it just took til 30 mins for this to work. Nothing els was working btw

20 mins crying is a long time for a 6 month old. I'd leave for a max of 2-3 mins and then stroke head / pat and sssh and maybe replace a dummy if they will take that and keep the intervals fairly short at first.