Feeling Pressure to Sleep Train

My baby started sleeping through the night at 7 weeks old. At 4 months she started doing 11-12 hour nights, no wakings. It was incredible for us. Unfortunately, we took a trip when she turned 8 months old, and everything went to shit. She started waking every hour and we were so out of our minds about it, we basically just panicked and gave her a bottle every time she woke up. We were NOT used to this behavior to say the least lol. This has been going on for a month now. Some nights she wakes 2-4 times, other nights it’s like 6-7. It’s been rough and the lack of sleep and stress has been weighing on me.

I always said I’d never do CIO. I have abandonment trauma from infancy due to being in foster care, and so I lean more toward attachment parenting. We bounce baby to sleep every night, I go to her right when she starts crying (I’ll maybe give her 30 seconds to see if she puts herself back down/was just crying in her sleep, but pretty much go into her room immediately to sooth her and let her know I’m there) so all this advice to do Ferber method is overwhelming. It’s making me feel like this method is THE ONLY WAY my baby will ever sleep 11 hour stretches again. I’m sad, I’m stressed, I’m tired. I don’t want to leave my baby to cry by herself, but I also need to be sleeping better for my mental health.

This was sort of just a vent — but also would love to words of encouragement, or success stories on “sleep training” without Ferber or CIO? It can’t be the only way…. Right?