Nap times and routine!

[Firsttimer16]

A little help needed!
My ds is 6 1/2 months and has just started crawling. He's a very active boy and I'm having trouble working out the best routine for him.
At the moment he's on roughly the following routine:
7am bottle
8am breakfast
9am nap (1-1.5hrs)
10:30/11 bottle
11:45/12 lunch
12:30/1 nap (1 hr)
2:30/3 bottle
4:30 sometimes cat nap if we're out in pram
6 dinner
6:30 bath
7pm bottle and bed

He is generally sleeping through the night so that is not an issue. However I think I'm getting his nap / awake times wrong as he is so difficult to put down for naps. He wails and wails and crawls around the cot and takes so long to settle. I've tried shortening his morning nap to 45 mins or so but he's sooo grumpy if I do that, and also still only sleeps an hour at lunch, but needs it earlier and then won't last the afternoon.
Do people swear by keeping this morning nap shorter? Should we be trying to drop the afternoon nap yet or is he too young?
Will he get over the novelty of crawling and pulling himself up on the cot?
I feel like I'm just making him upset by not reading him properly.

I have never cut the morning nap short. I know others offer swear by a 45m limited morning nap and I understand it's the Gina Ford routine, but don't understand it. The only time I would limit the mirnibg nap would be if:

• napping longer than 2 hours
• looking to drop the morning nap completely (when older)

Mine was having 1.5-2 hour AM and PM naps right through until 22 months old (plus 11-12h at night). This assumption that limiting the amount of sleep baby has to improve sleep is completely alien to me. I think more sleep is always better and most problems are caused by lack of sleep, not improved by it.

What i would suggest from your routine is to stretch awake time between AM and PM nap, in the hope of extending the second nap and drop the third nap.

Have a routines time you wake baby in the morning, say 7am. That allows you to routine the first nap at 9am (2h awake time). Then aim for 3h awake time, so PM nap starting 1pm-2pm.

The 234 routine is an often used approximation for awake times when on 2-nap days. Obviously if one or both naps are short, a third nap will be needed so 234 goes out the window.

Learning to crawl will be significant in this. In-cot settling always goes to pot around this stage. Just work through it. Encourage baby to stay in the cot to go to sleep and where possible to be still, quiet and calm. Physically holding baby can help encourage stillness at sleep time.

Ok thanks so much - I'll try pushing the second nap a bit later. Now he's on more solids too it will become easier as hunger shouldn't wake him for his 2:30/3 bottle.
Many thanks Fate!