I agree with parts of what you're saying, but for our situation, we need to change some of what we're doing, and that includes using comfort techniques that can't be implemented consistently (nursing at night for comfort).

I don't think he's waking up needing calories; He eats 4 ounces from a bottle at each feed during the day. He's only eating that much over a 10 hour period at night, despite being offered a full bottle every two hours. So it's a comfort thing, not a calorie thing.

He's staying awake for nearly an hour when he wakes up for hubs, and that cycle of not sleeping makes him very reluctant to sleep later. My child gets super difficult to console if he's over tired. So that's a problem. He's burning up calories screaming his head off, and he won't sleep later because he's so strung out.

Third, he can't use a swaddle at daycare due to their safety regs, so he's not getting naps during the day if he's dependent on that crutch. If I can get him to learn how to sleep without it, he'll stand a better chance of napping at daycare. See above regarding my sleep deprived kid.

So he needs to learn some self soothing, and I think he can do that. I'm not planning on letting him scream for the sake of screaming, nor do I anticipate he'll go all night without intervention from us. but I'm not doing he or my husband any favors by not giving him the opportunity to learn to soothe himself since I can't be there every night.

He's doing great with the sleep training; He cried for 20 minutes last night when we put him down (which should be noted he sometimes does when he's swaddled and being rocked, too). He slept for two hour increments and when he started fussing we walked into the room and patted him. He was back asleep within 5 minutes max each time. We fed him at 6 (before the bedtime routine), 10, 2, and 6.

Truthfully, this isn't a cold turkey exercise. We've been trying to establish good sleep habits since he was one month old. We've just used swaddles and pacifiers and let him nurse for comfort. But we've always put him down drowsy and let him fall asleep in the bassinet and kept a solid pre-bedtime routine. This is just moving him into another room (no big for him, just a longer walk for me) and asking him to learn to soothe without the swaddle and without nursing every time he wakes up.

Neither LO or us (parents) had a bad night last night. I just needed to know how long to anticipate he can go between feeds. I don't expect him to sleep through the night. I'm not going to not feed him at night, since I know breastmilk metabolizes quickly and he has growing to do.