6 month old DS waking up every 2 hours after midnight - Is it teething and will it pass?

[Minesnotahighhorse]

DS has just turned 6 months old and will not stay asleep for any length of time after midnight. He goes down easily at 7 -ish after a bedtime routine. It ends with BF but he is generally not fully asleep when placed in his cot (v. drowsy but eyes open) and he will just drop off. He then will usually stay asleep until 11 or 12 when I will feed him (if he does wake up before this time we can shush and pat him back to sleep). He will drop off after the feed but then will wake up approx every 1-2 hours for the rest of the night! If we shush/pat he will drift back to sleep momentarily but not for long, the only thing that will knock him out is BF but even then he will not stay asleep for longer than 2 hrs. I feed him lying down in bed and follow safe co-sleeping guidelines so I do get some sleep as we drift off together, but it means I am feeding him up to 5 times in the night and it is too much! I don't want to co-sleep long term and would like DS to move into his own room at some point.
I think his teeth are the problem. He is suffering very badly with teething pain (no teeth yet, but they have got to be imminent!) and we have been giving him Baby Nurofen before bed (on advice of GP) which I think facilitates the first big stretch of sleep (although I do know that babies generally sleep better in the beginning of the night). When he wakes he cries pretty much straight away (unless I attach him straight on to boob) and will get very upset even when picked up, showing signs of teething pain (biting everything, rubbing ear). If we give him another dose of Nurofen/Calpol he will eventually settle but only for another hour or so and I will end up BFing him to sleep again.
Has anyone else had a similar situation with teething pain and sleep, with BF the only solution? Did it improve once teeth appeared? He is definitely not hungry as he barely sucks at all before dropping off again. The GP and HV both advised to try and cut down the night feeds but part of me is of the 'whatever works' mentality until his teeth appear as I am hoping that once he is no longer in pain he will no longer want the comfort of BF so often in the night. The fact that he can go to sleep without boob for naps and can be shush/patted back to sleep if he's not in pain makes me want to believe he doesn't have a 'suck to sleep' association and it will get better. Should I carry on feeding him in the night so we both go back asleep or make more of an effort to settle him without BF?
Hope that all makes sense and sorry for the rambling essay. Any advice much appreciated.

My first thought is that feed to sleep association is quite strong? Also, have heard that babies often sleep better when moved into their own room and maybe the co-sleeping is disturbing him?

It will pass!!! I never worked out the cause but it happened with both mine and resolved as suddenly as it started in due course. In the meantime my approach would be to ignore well meaning advice if it doesn't suit you and just do whatever works best to get you all as much sleep as possible, be that neurofen, bfing, sush patting, cosleeping. It's tough while it lasts but it will get better. Good luck!

Thanks for the responses! Littlef00t , I do wonder if he would sleep better in his own room but worry that I would just end up back and forth all night and get even less sleep than I do already, which is a frightening thought! I suppose there is always that risk when you move them though. TakesTwo, I think my natural response is to follow a 'whatever works' approach but I make the mistake of listening to all the other mums talking about their DCs sleeping through or only waking once and then worry that we're doing something wrong

Would agree with little about the feed to sleep association. He might sleep better in his own room, where he cant smell you? You could try getting your dp to resettle him? Ds is 6 months and he seems to have a 'light sleep phase' every two hours when he is more easily disturbed...some nights he will wake every 2 hours on the button. When he wakes we normally give him 1-2 minutes to see if he resettles himself. He is formula fed, and we only offer a bottle at the first wake up, after that we try to resettle without it. Had an awful weekend but things have improved since.