Help with reducing toddler's nap

[Fanjita]

This is my first thread ever and I'm having great difficulty wording it so please bear with me...

My DS is 3yo and still has a nap every day. Some days he fights having one, somedays he takes himself off for a kip. If it's a day that he fights it I put him to bed and say if you're still awake in 5 minutes you can get back up, but invariably he's out like a light within seconds. However, he would then sleep quite happily for 2 hours or more and waking him beforehand is an absolute nightmare. He cries, screams, rolls over and goes back to sleep. He's a big boy and I can't lift him to rouse him fully as I'm 5 months pregnant. And of course if he's had a long sleep he won't settle before 9pm or later for bedtime.

If don't put him down for a nap anywhere ie bed, sofa, and try to forgo his kip, he'll either nod off by 5.30pm/6pm and if he was put to bed like this for the night, he'd wake in a few hours thinking he'd just had his nap.

Another problem with not bringing all his sleeping forward ie getting up earlier, nap earlier, bedtime earlier is that DH doesn't get home until nearly 7pm and they need their time together.

So, to make a very looooong story short, could you advise me on either how to do away with the naps altogether, or how long he should kip for and the best way to wake him please?

Thanks in advance

My 2.4yo DD would happily have a 2-3 hour nap in the afternoons, and then go to bed at 11pm. As I need to go to bed at 10.30 er doesn't really work for us .

I currently wake DD 1 hour by putting on her music box and singing , which normally works. When I first started waking her, she was grumpy in the extreme, but after about 10days she seemed to adapt and is now normally in a good mood on waking.

Thanks Martha, I will try my best to wake him with some cheery music and see how that goes. I will try for a fortnight

Any other suggestions would be greatly received.

If dd naps too long I go in, open the curtains and start singing while putting clothes away etc

she does wake up grumpy but as this is usually 3pmish the promise of milk and a biscuit usually takes the edge off