"C. Gregory" ) writes:
tired is not the issue, if he doesnt get his nap he turns into a holy
terror by 4 pm . well, not really a holy terror, but suddenly gets selective
hearing and a serious case of the no!'s and other disruptive behavior, i can
tell when he gets tired by his behavior, lol, its like a little gauge on his
back.

Yes, crankiness as naptime approaches and lots more
crankiness if a nap is missed -- I've been there.

However, if he were to get into a new routine of longer sleeps
every night and no nap, then perhaps after a couple of days of
settling into the routine, he might do better. Unfortunately
I don't know how to predict this without trying it -- which
might involve a lot of problems. It would be a leap of faith.

I suppose he's at some stage of shifting from needing a nap
to not needing a nap. I think a kid can be at a transition
phase: too old to take naps, but not quite old enough
to get along without the naps. Needing half a nap.
It can be a difficult stage. Some parents get through
this by waking them up after a short nap.

I can think of two other possible advantages of waking
him up from naps: he would know you were going to be
right there when he wakes up, and he might actually
find himself fighting you because he wants to stay
asleep, which might get him thinking differently about
the whole sleep thing! Maybe you could also use
the waking-up time to get him used to being
stroked on the forehead, hearing lullabies
etc. while sleeping.

I generally didn't like waking anybody up from naps
and tended to just let them sleep.

I found that if the nap happened a little earlier in the
day it would tend to be much shorter, which allowed
them to get to sleep at night more easily.

i so know what you mean, if he misses his nap time it throws off his whole
day, including bed time! i found that if he misses his nap its harder to get
him to sleep at night

Oh, dear, that's a difficult situation!
I supposed that's what my mother called being
"overtired".
--
Cathy