In a system and method for handing off a mobile node in a seamless manner in a wireless access network, procedures are implemented for allowing the mobile node to synchronize the handoff with a base node (e.g., a home agent) and a correspondent node. In this way, a seamless handoff may be achieved, since few or no data packets sent between the base node or the correspondent node and the mobile node are lost. The procedures are supported by both Mobile IPv4 and Mobile IPv6 as well as Hierarchical Mobile IPv4 and Hierarchical Mobile IPv6.