Chelsea,
One thing I noticed with my kids is they did the early morning wakings usually for one of three things: getting ready to do something developmental (crawling, sitting up, etc), getting ready to be sick, or teething and in pain. I usually didn't know which to pick until after the fact. The whole hindsight 20/20 thing.
The other thing I wanted to say is that my kiddos never did the same thing every time. And if I hoped/expected them to do the same thing every day, I'd be disappointed. And any time I tried to change something (like awake time) I had to give them about a week to see what the true results were going to be. There were just too many variables to see results same day/next day.
I agree that tweaking awake time is a good way to get him on a better schedule. I do want to mention that my day care baby was never a good sleeper. He did 45 min naps from 4 months until now he is 14 months and still often doing it. He sleeps 10-11 hrs at night and that is all the sleep he seems willing to do or requires. It's pretty crazy!
Grace was my spirited one and she was hard to get to nap too. Turns out she thrived on routine but I didn't find the right one until she was about 8-9 months old. When day time naps improved, night time got a lot better shortly after. On her tough days, when she was exhausted but wouldn't nap, I tossed her in the sling and took a walk. I walked a LOT, lost all the baby weight. It was hard to see other moms with "better" babies, easier babies, looking at me like "what is wrong with her?" But we survived and she is a pretty easy toddler and then came her wonderful textbook brother.
{hugs} and hopefully something I've said will help.