Is this a sign he’s ready to drop the naps?

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DS is 2y6m and the last 4 days has been horrendous so I’m wondering is this a sign he’s ready to stop the naps or it’s just some phase?

Normally he wakes up between 6-7, then has 2h nap from 2-4 ( approximately) and then bedtime at 9:30. Works for us, everyone was happy.. until 4 days ago when we went for a usual nap. He’s clearly tired, yawing, rubbing his eyes, crying, his eyes are already half closed but he can’t seem to fall asleep. He’s moving around the bed, rubbing his eyes, crying nonstop, then lying down for a few seconds as to sleep, then wakes up again, more cry, more eye rubbing, which are tired and red at this point already.

This went on for 1,5h until we gave up and he just went back to living room. That evening I put him to the bed earlier, went 7:30 and he fall asleep 8:15 and then woke up at 7.

All these last 4 days are exactly the same. Obviously I don’t want to force him to sleep if he don’t want but he clearly looks and behaves like he still need that nap so shall I just keep trying for a couple days more to have his nap or just go straight for earlier bedtime?

DD was only a bit older when she started sort-of dropping naps. We had about 4 months where we more or less alternated:

Day 1: normal nap, quite long - 2-2.5 hours but a later bedtime of around 9:30.
Day 2: No nap, but in bed by 6pm and would sleep straight through until 7am.

It was quite handy actually as we could plan activities based on her different nap schedule!

I'd try the no nap, early bedtime if it works for you.

You might find he needs a nap every few days or so. They often drop their naps a bit at a time around this age.

The other thing you can try is replacing naptime with quiet time (a movie, or just leaving him to play/look at books in his bed) and see if he can doze off when there is less pressure to get to sleep.

I found dropping the nap was a very long and shitty process. My daughter would refuse a nap but then be horrendous from 5 til bedtime. For bloody months. As someone else said it might be that he just needs a nap every few days. Ours ended up like that due to timing of a longish car journey a few times a week and that seemed an ok solution for a while. Second child is approaching that age now and I'm dreading it. Although hoping dropping the nap might solve the 5am starts!