@everest For our son, we found that total nap time basically did not matter at all. He could pretty much pull the same wake window after 30 minute or a 2hr nap. (Found this out when a pediatrician appointment effectively capped one of his naps to about 5 minutes and he just went about his day like nbd!). The time when total nap time _does_ matter, in my experience, is only if they are getting _too much_.
The run up to dropping a nap would always result in capping his naps aggressively to clear space for the long wake windows and then eventually dropping a nap when we got sick of how short all the naps were and didnt want to cap any further.
P.S. We have tried dropping nap #3 but it doesn't work when he's UP this early but it feels like he will be UP this early UNTIL he drops that last nap. Sorry for the caps I'm tired ◡̈
The solution to this conundrum is to alternate schedules. Instead of trying to drop the 3rd nap wholesale, just aspire to drop the third nap
when conditions are favorable. Then alternate between schedules ad hoc until the 3 nap schedule just never makes sense anymore.
For the 3-2 nap transition and especially the 2-1 nap transition, we spent probably a month or so making a call about how many naps to try based on when he woke up and the general vibes of the day.
The trap i had to learn to avoid was thinking that going "back" to the old schedule meant that we werent still making progress.
