"wake to sleep "for early wakeups?

[Anonymous]

I know there have been several early wakeup threads already, but I have a specific question that I haven't seen addressed. Has anyone tried the Baby Whisper's "Wake to Sleep" approach for early wakers? For those wondering what this is... basically, the idea is to wake the child an hour before they normally wake up (our case 4:30/5am, so we would wake at 3:30/4am) and apparently this will break the habitual waking cycle (if it is habit) and child will sleep longer. I'm wondering:

a) if anyone has tried it?
b) in what circumstances (what made you choose to do it)
c) how you woke the child (I know not fully, but did you pick up? change diaper, etc?)
d) did it work?

In case background is helpful: Our DS is 16 months and is now in the toddler room at his daycare where get gets only one nap a day at noon. At home on weekends he never makes it past 10am - I think b/c he wakes up so early. He can't have the morning nap at daycare b/c of all the activities so he does manage to make it until noon there, but is clearly tired at the end of the day so I'd like to get him to sleep longer at night (plus, admittedly it would be great to sleep in until at least 6am on weekends ourselves!). I thought this might happen on it's own as he adjusted to no morning nap at daycare, but this hasn't been the case. We've tried moving his bedtime later (it's currently 7:30pm) and that doesn't seem to make any difference. He might do better with an earlier bedtime, but we simply can't manage that during the week w/ our work schedules, feeding him dinner and spending at least some time with him (about 30 minutes post-dinner which I also would assume he needs to digest dinner a bit before sleeping). We've also tried bringing him into our bed but that doesn't work either (he snuggles for 15 minutes max and then stands up on the bed, points to the door and says "I go" until we get up). Oh, and we've also tried rocking/holding/patting him which works for the occasional night wakeups, but if the wakeup is anytime after 4am, soothing doesn't work. We'd like to avoid CIO - not on principal, but the fact that we have neighbors on either side and he has a loud cry. He goes to sleep great (good routine established), has an object of affection, and mostly sleeps through the night. On the rare occasion that he has slept to 6:30am he is clearly much more rested than the early wakeup (will wake up talking, not crying, and in a great mood throughout the day) so I don't think it's the case of him getting enough sleep at night with the current early wakeup.

We are probably going to go ahead and try the wake to sleep technique, but wanted to see if there was any feedback on it first....My fear is that it might teach him to wake at 3:30am instead of 4:30. Thanks!

[Anonymous]

Oops...meant this for the parenting forum so I will repost there.