my 196th post about sleep

well, technically, it's maybe my third post about sleep but i feel like it's my 196th because i think about it all the time.  how to get z to sleep easier, how to get him to sleep through the night, how/when to night wean, how to make sure that all of us are getting enough good sleep each night, how to get z to take good naps, etc etc.  it's exhausting.  haha.  so anyway.  i've been talking about this with other mothers.  reading books about it.  researching it online.  reading momma blogs.  consulting with my husband.  ugh, i just don't know what to do at this point.  it's not that z isn't sleeping at all, in fact, i think it's better than it was a few months ago in general.  he takes 2 naps a day and usually naps for around an hour, 1.5 hours on a good day and 30 min on a not so good day.  our bedtime routine is pretty consistent and he ends up falling asleep between 7:30-8:30pm.  but ever since he was about 8-9 months old he started waking up multiple times during the night.  before that he would at least sleep 7-8 hours most nights.  now he wakes up 3 times, sometimes more, like 6 times.  when he wakes up initially, around 11:30, i can usually rock him back to sleep.  but if he wakes up again after that, the only way to get him back to sleep is to nurse him.  and lately, sometimes even if i nurse him on both sides, he still won't go back to sleep so i have to take him back to our bed and try to get him to lay down and eventually he falls back to sleep.  although a few times, he hasn't and i've basically been up with him all night while he is tossing, turning, trying to get up, crying, and on and on.  hubs and i really feel like he is just to big and mobile to sleep in our bed anymore.  we are tired of waking up with a punch in the eye or a foot to the gut.  but i am kind of at a loss for what to do next.  originally when i started putting him to bed in his crib i tried the ferber method, and then i modified it after 3 weeks when it wasn't really working anymore, then i modified it again and now when he goes to sleep at night i stay in his room next to his crib til he falls asleep.  i don't pick him up or anything, i'm just sitting on the floor next to his crib.  if i leave the room he freaks out.  when i put him down for a nap, i have to rock him.  i've read various techniques for getting him to sleep that include ferberizing, cry it out, no cry sleep solution, montessori style bed situation, co-sleeping, night weaning, night feeding, etc.  i'm kind of confused now because i don't really know which direction to go.  i have gotten suggestions from people whose opinions i trust, but the problem is that z is just so intense!  for instance, when we tried the ferber method, he cried for well over an hour (an hour of him crying was my limit and after that i would go in and rock or nurse him to sleep) and wouldn't calm down for the first 9 days.  then it got better, and over the next week he would only cry for 10 minutes.  but then, he started crying for over an hour again, and that's when i modified the technique, which worked ok for 2 weeks and then modified it again to the one we've been using where i sit next to his crib til he falls asleep.  i really really don't like any versions of crying it out, even ferberizing, so i'm hesitant to use it again to try to get him to sleep through the night.  i don't know if it is right for him since he just doesn't calm down for so long.  i dread waking up at 2 am and having to sit there for 1, 2, 3 hours while i am dead tired and he is screaming to the point of retching.  so this is where i'm at now:  i am seriously considering night weaning sometime soon.  i'm not exactly sure how i want to go about that yet.  i also hope to try to get him to take naps without me rocking him and i haven't decided how i want to do that yet, either.  then i'll work on how to get him to sleep through the night.  right now, i'd like to ask parents this question:   did your one year old sleep in their own crib, all through the night without waking or nursing?  is this for real or is it more common that one year olds have a harder time staying asleep or getting back to sleep after they wake up in the night?  are more parents having trouble with this and they just aren't talking about it?  does ferberizing or crying it out really effective?  what are your thoughts about this?  have you night weaned?  if so, what did you do?  what worked and what didn't?  i really need help with this from you all, so please comment below or send me a message.  i would really appreciate it, and it will help me to narrow down how i want to proceed.  thanks in advance!