moving 7MO from 3 naps to 2 naps a day?

[nello]

Currently 7MO DS's day looks something like this:

6am: Wake and breastfeed
7am ish: breakfast
8a - 9am: nap
9ish: breastfeed
11.30 - 12.30: nap
12.30: breastfeed
1.30: lunch
3.30 - 4: nap
4.30: breast feed
5.30: Dinner
6.45/7: breastfeed and bed

He has started waking up much more in the night recently, and struggling to get back to sleep after waking at 4am. I am wondering if it may be because he is not tired enough at bedtime and whether I should try and cut out the last nap? Also thinking to give him lunch earlier, in the hope that he does a longer middle of the day nap.

Any thoughts? Thanks :)

Do you think he is waking because he is hungry or does he just want comfort?

If hungry he may be having a growth spurt?

How is his solid intake? Maybe try giving breastfeed 1.5 hours before solids if he is not taking enough solids and waking at night because of hunger?

Re last nap ime 4pm is the latest baby should nap, with waking by 3.45pm being preferable.

I don't know why he is waking - i think comfort rather than food. Maybe he is teething again - we have 4 teeth already and i think 2 more coming.

His solids are good - he has three meals a day, for example mashed banana and porridge for breakfast, cauliflower cheese followed by fruit/yoghurt for pudding, sweet potato and veggies with a pudding for dinner. Moving onto meats this coming week.

His last nap time (this is just a 30min nap) does sometimes stretch until 4.30/4.45 which is why i think i may need to drop it. Just worried that if we drop it and he doesn't take long enough at lunch time that he could be too tired by bed time. Maybe an early lunch at 11.30 and try putting nap after this at say 12/12.30. If he only takes 1/2 an hour I could try and squeeze in a cat nap in the afternoon, but if he takes longer then not bother.

thanks.

If he was to wake from nap by 2/2.30 do you think a baby of this age can hold out until bed time of 7pm? (difficult to put bedtime earlier due to his older sister)

If he was to wake from nap by 2/2.30 do you think a baby of this age can hold out until bed time of 7pm? (difficult to put bedtime earlier due to his older sister)

At 6 months I dropped down to two naps at roughly 10am & 2pm. I fed on demand then so nothing else was really "fixed" as such.

Reason I did it was early waking and quite often complete refusal to go down for the third nap.

I'm experimenting with 2 naps today. woke at 5.45 and first nap was 8 - 8.45, then put lunch earlier at 11.30 and nap at 11.45…woke after 30 mins but managed to re-settle. Now it is 1.30 (different time zone to UK) and just worried that if he wakes any time soon he will be shattered by bedtime, yet not enough time for a third nap…