phew you've been a busy bunch! here goes....
trimbler - I agree with the ladies. Your situation is so very similar to what we've had with O & things have been so so much better here since I pushed his nap later to 1/1.15pm. I have had to cap at 1h 45 though, as with the 2hr nap he won't settle until 8.30pm. And I HAVE to wake him by 7.15pm latest so he can get his 6hr A time in - any less & it means he is UT at BT - its made such a difference to us. I've tried to pull his nap earlier by 15mins in the last couple of days & mucked it all up, but what was working really well for us was:
Up: 7.15 (I was waking him every single day)
Nap: 1.15-3.00 (capped at 1h 45 or he is UT at BT)
BT: 8.00 (put him in bed 7.50pm & straight to sleep)
stardust - yk, I think that may have been an UT nap today, esp since she woke so happy. I agree with Sara, in my experience, O also struggles with long nap / long day & does much better with slightly shorter nap/shorter day. Simply because if he takes a 2hr nap his 2nd A is longer, so he ends up doing 11.5-12hrs total A time in a day rather than the 11hrs max he does if his nap is capped at 1.5-1.75hrs. You are right she is only doing such long CU naps b/c she is waking early & so she is shattered by naptime. But why is she waking early? Because her nap is too long. If you cut the nap back & her nights start to lengthen, you might find that after a couple of weeks of longer nights, she won't need such long naps & her nap will naturally start to cut shorter. Think of it as just starting her off on the right track!
well, after yesterday's long day & short nap, Oliver only slept 10h 50 overnight boo! Up at 6.40am. MIL held him out til 1pm for his nap but he short napped again 1h 35 today. Not so bad as only 10mins short, but he had massive bags under his eyes tonight ugh! And he didn't settle until almost 8pm AGAIN. Siigh! I'm home with him tomorrow so I hope he's not too grumpy & tired!
ETA: forgot to say Sara I think that looks good for today so hope you get a decent night's sleep!