Late bedtime won't settle before 10pm please help

[Stephnaic]

Hi guys hoping someone can help.
My 21 week old boy has been on a 4 hour EASY since about 3.5months of age due to his short day time naps. Since I've changed him he is able to stay awake for about 1.45 hrs to 2 hours activity time and most days sleeps 2 hours for 2 of his daytime naps and one 30-40 min Catnap. If I put him down sooner than 2 hours of activity time I've noticed his naps then become very short and he doesn't settle after. After his evening Catnap he stays awake until 10pm which is more than 2 hours of awake time but I've tried putting him down 2 hours after his Catnap and he refuses to sleep and cries hysterically even though I know he's tired and shows cues that he's tired as well. It's been such a struggle. He does sleep through the night and I don't do a dream feed instead I cluster feed him in the evening. He is mostly breastfed with one bottle of formula at 11am. Reading this post I'm thinking do I need to go to a 3.5 hr EASY?  Or how do I get him to bed earlier he use to go to bed by 8 and then the last few weeks he hasn't been able to make himself fall asleep. He was also falling asleep at the breast at that point too and since ive stopped that association he wont sleep on his own till about 10pm. I've also tried wind downs and even letting him play in his crib close to bed time to see if he would just fall asleep while playing as he has done that a few times in the living room around 845pm, but once I put him in his crib he wakes and won't settle again until 10pm. I'm stressing out because I know he's overtired at this point but nothing is helping and then I know he's not getting enough sleep. Please help, what am I doing wrong? 

this is what  our EASY looked like yesterday ....

640 awake playing 
E 700 breast 
A 740-832
S 840-1100 had to wake him up

E1112 (120cc formula)
A 1136-1245
S 1257-254 

E 304 breast
A 330 -448
S 451-542

E 600 (150cc ebm)
A620-714 
   715-730 shower massage 
E 740- 751    breast    cluster feed#2 right before bed ( no sleeps cues, appears to be working on a poop)
804 starting to fuss changed diaper had poop
808 top up  breast 

S 816 
836 hysterically crying went in and attempted to help him sleep no luck had to walk out of the room to have him stop crying  then he layed in our bed until 855 and got really fussy then I put him back down in his crib at 855 

Tries to settle but then gets hysterical grabbed him again at 930 
Now wide awake and will stay awake. 955 fussy husband put him down fell asleep by 1002, he sleeps through until 7am 

I'm wondering do I cut his evening cat nap out to get him to bed earlier? 

Please please help I'm loosing my mind.

[jessmum46]

I think there are a couple of possibilities here - the first is that you may be putting him to bed too late after the catnap, as usually you don't have a full A time after a shorter nap.  Typically bedtime would be around 7-7.30pm on the 'classic' 4h EASY routine and so it may be that he is getting an overtired second wind and then struggling to settle down properly.  However, the alternative possibility is that your catnap could be messing up bedtime.  2h A time is about right for his age but it's also not unusual to need more by now and the fact that he is getting rather a lot of daytime sleep on low-average A times might mean he is UT come bedtime. 

It's up to you which way you go really - just looking at the numbers it's tricky to tell.  You could test the OT theory by bringing his BT earlier for a few days, and see if it helps.  If that clearly makes things worse I would start pushing out your day from the start, adding 10-15 mins more A time and holding for a few days to let it settle, so naps start falling later in the day and gradually work towards cutting the catnap.  You don't have to go 'full' catnap or none - you can always cut the nap from 30 to 20 to 10 mins before dropping.  This link might also be helpful - https://babywhispererforums.com/index.php?topic=246541.0