Losing my mind. Please help!!! 15mth can't get wake time right

[malibu_nikkus]

Hi there
I did post on here last week but I'm just so lost, so am hoping for some more help.

Ever since 12mths my little touchy man has refused his afternoon nap, no matter how short or long he napped in the morning.
So, I'd have the dilema of him going down for his usual morning nap and then being awake by 12pm and not going till bed till 7pm.  It was okay for a while but he is getting really overtired.  I am trying to push his wake time in am later and later in hope he is will sleep longer.

Our problem is:
a) he will only nap for about 1.5hrs, no more.  which isn't enough to see him through to the night without being exhausted in the arvo.
b) while experimenting with wake times, whenever I put him down he is taking about 20mins to settle (even when I put him down at 12pm yesterday as a 'trial'.   Don't they settle about 5-10mins max if truely tired.  He is grizzling on and off with a little chatter.

On Sunday we were out and could only get him down to bed at 12.30pm.  By this time he was so clearly tired.  He slept 1.45hrs. Awoke after 45mins but resettled within 1 min.  He doesn't usuallly wake at 45mins.

He was then grizzling for most of the arvo.

About a week ago I tried to slowly increase his wake time to about 4.30hrs.  He woke every half hour, but did sleep about
 2 1/2hrs

I really need help, some kind of guidance of what time to put him to bed.  I'm really worried that putting him down for a nap every day at a different time is probably confusing his little system.

He does sleep well at nights (sleeps from 7-6.45am).  The past few nights he has woken for a very short grizzle at about 2am, but last night he didn't.  The reason I started to mess around with his wake time in the morning was because he started to wake a lot of night and earlier in the morning (which happens when he is overtired).

I'm so sorry this is long, but of course my main aim is to
a) get him to nap longer -which I'm sure will only happen if I get the wake time better and more consistent.

Please note, we have put him to bed earlier at night to make up for a long wake time in arvo but he ends up waking around 5am which is not ideal for us or him.

So sorry for the length of this.  But thank you so much in advance.

P.S Schedule

6.45 - wake
7am - feed
8.30 - breakfast
10am - morning tea
11am - bed
11.25 - asleep
1pm - lunch
3.30pm - afternoon tea
5.30 - dinner
6.45 - bottle
7pm - bed

[speechie]

You are not alone- the 2-1 nap switch took SO LONG for us!! Ups and downs- long naps/short naps, EWs, ugh.
The good news is, it WILL happen! I honestly wound up taking things day by day- some days he was able to go till noon and slept for 1 hour- YIKES, therefore early to bed.
Next day, needed AM and PM naps- but refused the PM nap- so OT and early to bed, Next day, took both solid AM/PM naps so, later bedtime!
Drove me batty- huge hugs...

Honestly, the naps will be wonky for a while, then once he starts to settle down for one 12:30 ish nap, it will gradually lengthen to a nice 2 hour nap!

Hang in there!