Earlier to bed = later waking?

[mumhmc]

I wondered if we could get a sort of poll on whether this has "worked" for people in relation to early rising?

Our younger son is 17 months old and hardly sleeps over 24 hours. He is usually asleep by 7pm. He wakes at 4.30am (and won't go back - screams). But only naps for about 1.5 hours TOPS during the day, whether at home, in the buggy, in pitch black etc etc. My older son slept around 4 hours more in 24 at this age.

Could you tell me whether putting your kids to bed earlier made them wake later or earlier? I'm interested to hear others' experiences of this.

Thanks!

My 14 month DD sleeps slightly less than this (shorter nap), but it appears to be normal for her. She is not tired in the day and will just go to bed later if I let her nap longer. Trying to get her to bed earlier just doesn't happen! She is on a later bedtime/wake up though, which makes it a bit less painful! However, it is a bit frustrating to not have the sleep and nap times I thought I would, to get stuff done and relax. I will be interested to see what other people say.

My dd is 23 months and has never napped more than 40-50 mins im since she was a baby, sleeps 9-11 hours at night. Only naps in buggy on the move. mum my elder 6 yo needs more sleep than the young toddler, I'd say try dropping or shortening your son's nap but since my dd2 is a terrible sleeper I'm seeing what others say!

Sorry for your original question,new cant figure out the early wakings, we've found a bedtime ranging 630-8 makes no difference, the only clear pattern has been length of the nap and time of it makes a difference to how much she fights sleep and wake up time.

Makes no difference to ds, who (like both parents) is a lark.

We've tried putting him to bed at 6, 9 and everything in between (with a good week or two of each to get used to it.)

He still wakes dozens of times a night and wants to be up before 4am.

My experience with my four children:

More sleep = easier to get to sleep & longer sleep & better quality sleep = even more sleep

and

Less sleep = hard to get to sleep & wakes easily & poor quality sleep = worse sleep

With my youngest (currently nearly 2), she maintained two naps until 20 months old so at 17 months she slept:

6.30-7.00am wake
9-11am nap
1-3pm nap
7.00-7.30pm bedtime
(Not all my children have slept this much!)

If she had a period of time with less sleep - when on holiday for example, or when poorly or too hot - Her whole sleep would become a mess.

On our hols for example, her daytime sleep went down to 1.5-2 hours a day and were at really random times. For example she might stay awake all day and zonk 3-4pm. She'd then have a majorly disturbed nights sleep, waking often and early. That would make the next day awful because she was over tired but would now be even harder to get to sleep so the problem just perpetuates.