Should the 'long nap' always be lunchtime, or is a morning long nap okay?

[FinallySomeNormality]

So we are absolutely thrilled that DS2 (4.5mo) is finally, in the last week, figuring out how to nap longer than 30mins at a time (which is what he's done since 6wk old). He generally has a short nap of about 40mins as his first nap of the day (2hrs after waking in the morning, during the school run), but I've noticed sometimes he wants to have a long nap at that time now. However, if he does it means that the rest of the day's naps are only 30mins - he still does 4 naps mostly.

Should I be waking him after, say, 45mins from the first nap in the hope he will then do his longer, restorative nap around midday? His awake time is 1.50-2hrs at the moment. He sleeps pretty well at night - down at 6:45/7, dreamfeed at 11pm and then goes through until about 5:45am when he has a feed and usually back to sleep until 7am.

From a google it sounds like the long nap should ideally be middle of the day one, as that coincides with our natural energy dips. It also means they get a more refreshing sleep in the middle of the day, so they're not just surviving on quick cat naps from 10:30am until bedtime. However... he has, of course, been suriviving on catnaps all of this time anyway!

Eugh. I hate naps!

My dd had her longer nap over lunch, as I found if I let her nap too long in the morning over time her start time for the day got earlier and earlier as her body clock knew it was going to catch up at 10! And again would be ratty by bedtime after catnaps for the remainder of the day. If waking him up means he's happy to do a longer nap later I'd do that, but if by waking him up he ends up not having a long nap at all I'd probably just suck it up and hope things changed as he got older!

I'd let him. Dc4 then 5 came along when I already had school runs. Their long naps usually followed the morning school run, then they'd have a lunch time feed & a play for a bit followed by a shorter nap before the afternoon school run, another feed when we got back followed by a 30-40 min sleep before getting in to bedtime routine etc. it worked for our day & they never seemed overtired so I went with it.

@LG93 Hmm see this is my worry - sometimes he won't do a long nap later in the day. I do try and extend a short lunch nap by settling back to sleep, but even with picking up and rocking that isn't always destined to work! So I do worry that if I wake him from a morning nap, I'm basically sabotaging his only long nap of the day! But I have also read, like you say, that long morning naps tend to lead to early wakes which I also def don't want!

I would let him decide. He's young and it will all change again within 2 or 3 months, there's no point trying to be too exact. If he does start waking too early you can wake him up sooner but it might not happen and even if it does it will only take a few days to rectify.
My daughter used to sleep 9-12 from about 6 months old, she never woke before 7. She only started having a lunch nap at 15 months.