Gradual retreat for early waking?

[HoggleHoggle]

Used gradual retreat for ds - 12 months - with night waking. Works well with anything before about 4am but almost impossible after that. Dh has been in ds's room for an hour now, if it was the middle of the night we would persevere but at what point do you just give up and start your day? And if you do, has that just made the last hour of work pointless?
Finding it so hard to fix these early wake ups and it's becoming beyond miserable. None of us are getting enough sleep.

In my experience, once theyve woken for the day that's it. You might as well accept it's time to get up! For us, any wake up after 4am is morning.

God if you find out how to do it please tell me! Dd is now 2 and has been an early riser - 4-5.30 (although her usual time is 4.30) - since she was 8 months old. I'm afraid I take the view that any time after 4 is ok to get up. It's hell, but you do get used to it!

Lots of

Well after just over an hour of dh being in room shushing ds, he gave up and went back to sleep for 40 mins. We're both massively surprised, I thought it was just too close to 'proper' morning for that to happen. He may have tired himself out from the crying though.
We have previously just given up and got on with the day with the early wake ups but we're giving the more hardcore gradual retreat a go while dh is on hol, just to see if it works in morning if you're consistent. Spoke to a lovely sleep consultant on the phone last week who said we should treat anything before 6am as night waking. Which I think is much easier said than done, but we're giving it a whirl.

We've had a little success with wake to sleep with our 14mo's early mornings. Not guaranteed but so far waking her at 430 and resettling has got us an extra 20 mins - 2 hours sleep from the usual 530 wake up.