Separation anxiety? Advice?

Anyone else feel like your baby is starting to have separation anxiety?

Jay will be 7 months on the 20th and the past week has been insanely clingy if I walk away, especially at night! He's always been a clingy baby but it's suddenly gotten way worse. He'll play fine on the floor by himself as long as I'm nearby but I walk out of the room for 5 seconds and he starts wailing.

Bedtime especially is awful. He's fast asleep and wakes up realizes he's alone and starts screaming. The second you pick him up he nuzzles into my neck and immediately falls asleep, but the instant I try to put him down he wakes up and screams until you pick him up and again immediately falls asleep. I have to pick up and put down multiple times before I can leave the room. Finally around midnight he's out cold until 7 am, but from 8 pm to midnight he's constantly doing this. My husband has more success putting him down the first time for the night then I do, but then once he wakes up he only wants me (even though I don't nurse him or anything, just cuddles). Crying it out does not work. He literally screamed for an hour when we tried it and I finally went and got him and he immediately fell asleep when I picked him up. I'm at a loss as to what to do. 😥 I hate seeing him so upset.

When he's held or you are playing with him he's as happy as can be. It probably doesn't help that because of quarantine my husband is working from home so it's just the 3 of us. We haven't had any visitors in 8 weeks unless they were 10 feet away outside.