I do agree. Looking at the past days Kara there is a lot more consistency than I thought there would be. You recovered VERY well from that 4:56am waking with a 12+ hour night, which means that he CAN catch up on sleep if he really needs to.
What my gut tells me by looking at this pattern is that he wakes early because he CAN. If he wakes up early, he is allowed to go to sleep earlier that day, and at this stage in the game I think he has realised that (consciously or subconsciously!) While I do think that for younger LOs and touchy LOs, you do have to move the nap earlier when you have an EW, I am starting to wonder if setting it will really help to set a body clock for him. It may take a couple of weeks, but he will start to realise that night is for sleep, and naps are for after lunch. Don't sleep in the night, gonna be tired all morning! I would not push it on him too harshly at first, though.
Generally, it looks like he's waking 6/630ish and napping at 1ish? I think I would move that a wee bit earlier, as it looks like earlier was getting you some better naps. I know the A time will be mucked up, but I am starting to suspect that A times are NOT the way to go here. I think you need to use some clock times for at least a few weeks and see. We've not gone that route yet and it is very effective for so many people (works well for us!) and my own opinion is that there is nothing to lose anymore -- you might disagree with that one of course!
So try a 1230ish "set" nap time. "Set" in quotes because to me that can sway 10 minutes either way, depending on the day. But I do find that once we get into a good routine, it is not totally uncommon for my DS to fall asleep at bang-on the minute every day (lately has been 12:03pm, waking at 1:33. Weird, eh?) I would then adjust that "set" time to 1200 or 100 after a few days of seeing when he seems to fall asleep easiest.
I'd do the same with bedtime -- between 700 and 730 looks like where you are having the most luck. I would start with putting him into his cot at 700 and seeing what time he falls asleep, and then adjust. If he is regularly taking until 8ish to fall asleep then I would say that means 700 is too LATE and instead have him in bed for 630. And except on days when he totally does not nap or naps less than one hour, I would not move bedtime earlier. If he naps less than an hour I would only move bedtime 30 minutes earlier max, unless you're reaching meltdown. But I wouldn't routinely do it -- I think he is learning the same with naps "doesn't matter if I don't nap, I can just go to bed early...."
I don't think that you can get out of this totally OT-free. Not if he EWs on you. That's the tough part. But I think that if you implement it GENTLY and slowly, it shouldn't take too long, and i think that one good nap or good night's sleep at any point should be able to catch him up from any OT that you do get.
So if he EWs, all I would do is whatever you can to get him back to sleep. Use some teething gel, some tylenol, lie on his floor and hold his hand through the cot bars or whatever. But do not get him up, nothing until your accepted, desired wake up time -- 6? or 630? Either way I would choose your wake up time now and stick with it, and then once things are starting to look a little bit consistent, I would start waking him up at that time so that a sleep in does not get you off track.
It just really looks to me like A times are NOT the way to go here and that setting a body clock and letting him know when sleep time is, is probably the best way to go.
Any thoughts on that plan...do you think I am off my rocker? ! LOL, you know me, I don't care if you write back to tall me I'm dead wrong and have got it all totally misunderstood so don't worry!!