Why does it feel so impossible

Yes I have experienced this. The only thing to stop it was for my partner to sleep with her in another room. She screamed and cried which was hard for everyone but it broke the cycle and she was still being held by someone so it wasn’t like leaving her to cry alone which I wasn’t willing to do. It’s really tough, be kind to yourself.

Wean off the breast, difficult few days then things will settle.

I agree with PP, you need to sleep in another room (if possible). When we sleep trained my daughter, my husband had to do all the checks because she could smell my milk and would go mental. Maybe try offering water instead? Eventually, he'll get the idea.

Agree with the others. Night wean. Tell him you're doing it. Stick with it. Decide whether you'll offer in the day or not and let him know that too, but none at night. Have other half with him. It will be horrible but it will get better very quickly.

Well we didn’t want to sleep train so we still co sleep but she is now fine with the comfort of us just being there. Other people i know have then gone onto sleep trajn. If they know they won’t get bf then I think they are ok with other sorts of comfort. Mine is still bf in the day but knows it’s out of bounds at night and doesn’t ask anymore. But definitely needed several weeks with me out the room and partner dealing with it ‘crying in arms’

It’s so hard because you’re so tired and just don’t have the energy to have a stand off at 11pm/1am/3am. With DD I did a gradual “shift back”. So on night one, she woke up at 12 and I fed her back to sleep and then every time after that. The next night she woke up at 12 and I just sat with her till 12:30, when I fed her back to sleep. Next night 1am. Then she started waking later and later and I could stretch it further or she’d fall back asleep without feeding. . Once we got to 5am I just stopped.

i should add that she wasn’t in my room though so possibly that was also a factor.

Yes I completely understand, I felt the same, my partner did it in my case because I was back at work and not coping. But I couldn’t do it myself, so I completely understand. I know it’s not what you want to hear but I don’t think they very often do it themselves at this stage, not for a while anyway. I think some people are lucky with better sleepers but if you’re already at this age and in this situation, I think it will continue. It is really really hard and i really empathise. Before we did night wean, I would co sleep and do lying down feeding so that I barely had to rouse to feed which helped a lot with my sleep. My daughter used to wake hourly too. I think it’s more common than we all think because we only hear those gloating about good sleepers. I tell hardly anyone about our sleep issues because I can’t be doing with the pitying looks and annoying advice!
Other people may be along suggesting you sleep train which I couldn’t personally do but is another option to you.

I night weaned DS cold Turkey at around 16 months as I just couldn't handle the frequent wakes and feeling so touched out any longer and it was making me an awful shouty mum because I was so fed up.

I would say if you are going to do it, then commit to it properly. While it is awful to make them so upset and know you could fix it, we had about 3-4 nights of crying (maybe an hour in total over the first night then less each night) before he got through it and learned that there was no more boob. Lots of people say to involve DH but I found that too difficult as DS was only used to me at bed time and it felt like I was abandoning him at his time of need. I literally would just hold him while he cried and talk to him, apologising 😂, and just doing all the things you would think, walking round, shushing him, putting music on etc and eventually he would settle and go off.

I don't mean this as a criticism at all but your 8 minutes of crying were a bit of a waste really because you let him be that upset and then still fed him anyway, whereas if you decide to go for it and then stick to it whilst it is very hard you know you are doing it for a purpose and that the crying is a means to an end.

I will say though that stopping did not magically stop the wake ups and 6 months on he still doesn't sleep through reliably every night (although he definitely does sleep better.)

The big difference though is that now when he wakes I can just go in and lie with him (we moved to a floor bed shortly after I stopped feeding) and he will go back off. I don't feel so touched out and I can also be resting too, whereas when I was feeding I had to be sat up in the nursing chair as he would not tolerate lying down.

Ok then you need your Dh on board. He needs to deal with it and you need to just do earplugs and ignore. Tbh I only got the resolve to do it when I was so tired from 2 hourly wakings that I accidentally ran a red light and then only reason I ( and both dc) weren’t squished to pulp was the other driver’s reactions ( cement mixer). I realised better red faced and bawling than in a coffin. But I know that’s an extreme experience. Not suggesting you try to replicate it!!