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!

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.

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?

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.