is this habitual waking or ???

[misha]

My DS is a great daytime sleeper and used to be a good nighttime sleeper, but no more. About a month ago we went on a week -long vacation which coincided with a teething episode for him and he got all out of whack at night and we were forced into some AP considering we weren't in our element, DS was in our room, etc.
The tooth has now broken through, he has learned to crawl since then We can't get a week without major disruptions!

So, the problem is now he wakes at midnight, 3 am and 6:30 almost every night. When he begins to cry (not always, but usually) I go in and he is sitting facing the corner of his crib, or on all fours, or under the covers He grasps my arms and won't settle without being picked up.

We tried PU/PD for 4 nights about 3 weeks ago, and saw no progress as it seems my LO never "got" it- the crying times never got shorter and he would just be overtired during the day.
We've also done W2S at 11pm to avoid the midnight waking, but it has never worked. He wakes up anyway, right on schedule. We joke that the neighbor has an alarm clock set that wakes him up

Any ideas anybody? Here is our daily routine, he is 10 months old.
8:00 wake-up
nurse& breakfast
10:30-11:15 nap
lunch
1:45-3:15 nap
4pm: snack
7pm- dinner
bedtime routine
8.8:30 bedtime

thanks in advance

[Colin Macs Mom]

Hi Michelle,

How long has he been waking at those times? I suspect that it's not necessarily habitual, but related to his milestones. Often when a lo learns a new skill they want to practice, and nighttime is no exception. Since he's just learned to crawl and you find him on all fours it sounds like that's what he's doing. Assuming that's what's going on here, you want to keep these wakings from becoming habitual. I would suggest trying wake to sleep closer to the actual time that he wakes, like 10 or 15 min before rather than an hour. Or if you prefer, it will often take more than 4 days to see improvement with PU/PD.