7.5 month old trying to drop the morning nap.

[jules_is_cute]

My girl is on a 4 hour easy for the most part, but she does non nutritive nursing before each nap and bedtime.  I tried teaching independent sleep from about 12 weeks on with some good results but when the crying persisted I had  reverted to rocking her to sleep most of the time by the time she reached 18 weeks.  Oddly enough  I am now able to put her down awake 80% of the time with absolutely no crying and she usually goes to sleep on her own, not sure how this happened, but it did.   I tell you this because independent sleep is not the issue with her skipping the morning nap.
 
She's on a regular schedule that looks like this:

5 am Dream feed
(I work at 6 am most days and don't return until 8 - 9 am.  She either sleeps through from about 10-12 am or wakes at 3 am for a feed.  She will not take a bottle - that is a different issue and I'm not willing to let her go hungry - so I have to make sure she eats before I go to work.)

6 - 7 am wake / eat solids
7:30  A

8 - 9 am nurse / morning nap

10:30 - 11 am wake eat solids
11 - 11:30  A

12:30  - 1 pm  afternoon nap

2  - 3 pm  wake / eat snack (teething biscut or some fruit)
2:30 - 3:30 A

4 - 5  pm dinner solids
5:30 - 6 pm light/quiet A reading or see Daddy for a bit before bed (this tends to be more active than I like, but I don't think anyone has gotten daddy's to play quietly yet, so we deal with the longer winddown)

6 - 7 nurse / bath / bed

usually 1 night waking from 12 - 3 am

Now here's where things get weird.  For the last 10 days I put her down, no morning nap.  No crying, just talking.  She just sits there in her bed awake playing with her feet and her lovey!  I leave her for 1 full hour!  Then I try going in and rocking her, she just plays with me or tries to!!  She seems tired and is rubbing her eyes.  But she simply refuses to go to sleep.  She doesn't cry and isn't really fussy.  She's not teething at the moment.  I tried putting her down a little later at the 2.5 hour mark and still nothing.
The last 6 days I have just moved the afternoon nap up to 11:30 or 12 pm and she often sleeps for 2-3 hours...but if it's only 2 hours and she wakes by 2 pm she is really done with us by 4 or 5 pm.  Putting her down for a nap anytime after 3:30 has proved unsuccessful, she either won't take the nap and I waste an hour rocking her or she just stays asleep and wakes up at 4 or 5 am ready to start the day.
1 day I tried waking her from this late nap to create a later bedtime.  It was a disaster.  We had an ultra fussy baby who would not go to sleep for her bedtime that night.
I guess I am wondering if I should really be worried about her going down to 1 nap at this early age.  She doesn't seem fussy and she goes to sleep easily for bed at 6 pm and the nap she does take is lengthy.  I am just worried that it really isn't enough sleep and that it is going to backfire and that the afternoon nap will go next and then bedtime will be hard, then the nightwaking will start.  According to all the experts it's a slippery slope...but then all the experts don't equal the knowledge of a great community of mothers.
So I am asking you.  What should I do if anything?  Has anyone else ever had a baby this young go down to only 1 nap a day?
Any help would be greatly appreciated.

To make things even weirder...
Oddly enough today at 9:40 I was able to get her to nap, she woke at 6:30 am.  I'll post how it affects her afternoon nap later on today.  Because I know that will be an interesting piece to the puzzle.

Patty

[jules_is_cute]

okay and that nap was very short...it's 10:25 am and she's up!!  BTW she slept 12.5 hours last night, and I never heard her.  She slept 12 hours the night before, but woke at about 2:15, I heard her talking but didn't go to her since she wasn't crying.  Prior to these last 2 nights she was waking 1 time as stated before.
~Patty

[jules_is_cute]

Somehow I knew this was going to happen...She made every attempt to skip the afternoon nap!!  Since she woke up at 10:25 I started nap routine at 12:30 pm. 
She simply would not go to sleep I tried for 90 minutes, rocking, doing naptime routine.  Putting her down the first time I left her for 30-45 minutes.  Returned to her yelling and squealing (but not crying) picked her up, reinforced that it is naptime, by not making eye contact, tried to soothe her to a relaxed state in the rocker, failed, put her down after 5 - 10 minutes.  I went in every 15 minutes after that, then gave up at 2 pm.
I played with her vigorously to help her to burn up some energy, tickled her and such, then at 2:45 tried for the nap again, because she'd no way make it to bedtime on one 45 minute nap...she fell asleep at 3 pm.  She slept until 6 pm!!!
So her bedtime was pushed down to 8 pm tonight!  And she was very fussy.  I tried to get her down sooner, but it wasn't easy as we didn't want to have dinner at 9 pm. 
So did that the morning nap interfere with her afternoon nap today because that is all she seems to need is about 3 hours and she wants to consolidate it?  I'm at a loss.  I don't know what to do.  Can anyone help?
~Patty