Help with nighttime sleep for my cosleeping babe

Hi friends! I'm in a conundrum. I cosleep/breast sleep with my 8 month old son. I love it (most nights), he loves it, it's working really well for the most part. HOWEVER, I have yet to get my period back and I really want to start trying for baby #2 this summer. My guy is on the tit All. Night. Long. Which is contributing to my lack of period from what I understand.

If I try to get him back to sleep he will revolt until there's a nipple in his mouth. I don't want to stop cosleeping, and I don't even want to night wean. I just need some advice from other mamas (or supportive dads!) who have been in my shoes. If I even just lay him down on the bed for a nap or bedtime, he will start crying until he gets the boob. It seems so daunting to even think about trying something else because whenever I do, it fails.

Do you have any advice for me? How can I start to transition my baby away from being on the boob all night? We had one night where he only woke up once to feed and slept the rest of the night (which was amazing!!!) but I haven't been able to replicate since. I have started to limit his daytime naps to max out at 3-3.5 hours tops, and have longer wake windows to try to encourage more nighttime sleep. He usually goes down between 7:30-8:30 pm and is waking up anytime between 7-8 am. But we usually have anywhere between 3-7 nighttime wake ups that I remember (could be more, who knows)

He's never been one to be able to fall asleep with any shooshing or patting. Food has always really been the only way I've been able to get him to sleep and I am just intimidated to try anything else as I don't want him to cry anymore than he does now- which really isn't much. He's a super happy baby and is very social. He doesn't like being alone- like I can't go to the bathroom or leave the room for more than 10 seconds before he starts crying. So, very attached to me, if that helps at all. Looking for any advice or even solidarity I suppose.