Got myself into a pickle with 15mo naps- please help

[MinisterforCheekyFuckery]

DS is 15mo. He's one of those babies who slept brilliantly as a newborn and then as soon as he was mobile it all went to pot!

At 11mo he started refusing his afternoon nap. We tried everything but he only wanted to nap in the morning and naturally stretched that nap out for longer. He has followed this same pattern ever since. So he wakes at about 5.30am (sometimes earlier, maybe 5am sometimes were lucky and he sleeps til 6am but this is rare) and
he normally starts rubbing his eyes and yawning by about 9am. He would happily go down for a nap at this time but I've managed to stretch it to 10am recently. He falls asleep straight away and usually sleeps for 1.5-2 hours, waking up for lunch. He then stays awake until bedtime at 7pm. As you can imagine, he gets very whingey and emotional by tea time.

I know that most toddlers his age are napping after lunch and I feel that not only would this make life easier for me but he might also be less whingey in the evenings and possibly even sleep for longer in the mornings if we could achieve this.

Do I just power through and keep him awake til lunchtime, maybe give him his lunch early at 11/11.15am then put him down straight after? Then gradually try to push it later? I'm worried that keeping him awake all morning will result in him being so overtired he won't nap at all.

Any advice would be much appreciated.

Hi, mine did the same when she went from 2-1 nap at about a year. Now at 19 months she mostly naps after lunch and is a better routine I think! I'd say two things helped for us. 1) pushing the morning nap later by powering through eg to morning playgroups that start at 9... the 10am group she often fell asleep in the car on the way to and I could never decide whether to wake her or go home let her sleep! Often eats a good amount of snacks then crashes on the way home about 11:30 2) lazy mornings, maybe after a busy day, my daughter quite likes these so might not work if temperament is different. But I breastfed in my bedwhen she stired at about 530 and sometimes back to sleep, sometimes.a sleepy fed for about 45 minutes then we got up.

We’ve just been through the same thing with our 16month old and we just decided to power through till 12 rather than do it gradually and it took 3 days before she got it, including 1 nursery day when she didn’t nap at all, but she will now reliably nap from 12.30/1ish till 2 or 3 and then bed between 7 and 7.30 x