What would you do - 15month old naps

[CupidStunt24]

Hello! Just wondering what others would do in my situation. I have an almost 15month old, he has been on two naps since about 9 months old. Currently his routine loosely is:

Wake 6.30-7.00
Nap 10.30ish 12.00ish
Nap 4.00-4.20ish
Bedtime about 8.15

This works for us, and I know it’s not the traditional short-morning-nap-long-afternoon-nap, but this isn’t an option for us as I work full time and my mum has him, but has to do a school run for another child at 3pm. So he can’t be asleep in that time and doesn’t nap in the pushchair. So when I went back to work we trialled letting him keep the morning nap longer and he has 20-30mins when I pick him up in the car. I wasn’t sure this would work but somehow it has. However, that morning nap has got later and a little longer, today he slept 11.00-1.15. He would not go to sleep when I picked him up and got hysterical after 40mins driving round! So now I’m worried I have a fight on my hands tonight.

I’m not in a rush to drop that catnap in the afternoon, but at the same time if he’s going to refuse it I’m not going to battle us both through it.

Is it worth trying to push the first nap later, and hopefully getting to around 2pm? At the weekend when we are home he still has 2 longer naps 10.30-11.30am and 3.00-4.00pm.

I was dreading this transition as we’ve been in such a nice flow for a few months and I’m scared to bite the bullet!

Also, he seems to be a 10-10.5hr a night kinda kid. Whether that’s him or the routine just the routine he’s been settled in. I know that’s pretty average and I’m not desperate for him to have longer nights, as he is happy and rested. But when he doesn’t have a second nap (like today) I know I need to put him to bed earlier to stop him getting too tired. Am I then in for a really early wake up!?

I think it’s normal to only have 1 nap by then. I think Ds was down to one nap by 9/10 months, and now at almost 2 he’s been reluctant to nap at all the last 2 months. So naps maybe 4/7 days

I would do a short morning nap (20mins or so) then a lunch time nap. We do this with our 15 month old if he has a 5am start 🤪
Otherwise he’s on a 12-12:30 nap time

Thank you for your replies! @FTMworrier I’m not really sure a 20min nap will work, he has always had longer than what you read wake windows. When I tried the 234 routine when we dropped to 2 naps, he laughed in my face trying to put him down for a nap 2hrs after waking! And now he is increasingly pushing that first nap backwards, so even having 20mins then it’s likely he won’t be ready for a lunchtime nap until later on when my mum will need to start getting ready for the school run. I think I’ll just leave things as is for now, let him sleep in the mornings as that’s his best chunk of sleep and he seems to be pushing that back on his own. If he naps when I pick him up great, if not I’ll just panic all evening about bedtime put him to bed earlier.

Why change it if it's fine?

Mine kept two naps until around 17/8 months. She was the same, long morning, short afternoon. She just shifted round to one midday nap on her own without any particular effort from me.

This is why a short morning nap is usually recommended. When the time comes to drop to one, it’s less of a shock to the system if they are used to only 30 minutes in the morning as opposed to 2h. I think you need to drop to one and just push through the difficult few weeks it’ll be while he makes the transition. Get your DM to take him out to something fun in the morning, back for lunch and down for 12, up for 2 then she’s still good for her school run at 3. My DS night sleep increased on dropping to one nap - you may find the same too. Now sleeps 11h quite consistently overnight.

I would push the morning nap back a little so it becomes an after lunch nap (plenty of time for that before 3pm). That way he won't need the afternoon catnap but should still be able to last until bedtime.

When my DD was 15 months she started doing this, her morning nap would get later and later until she was napping 11-1.. refused an afternoon so would go to bed 6:30/7. I stuck to that for a while until she adjusted to the 1 nap and by 17 months was napping 12:30-2:30 and bed at 7:30. You could do the 11-1 nap with an earlier bedtime for a while?