Goodbye Afternoon Nap?

I think that we are finally bidding goodbye to my dear friend, "Koen's afternoon nap." I can't complain. Koen had a rough time learning to nap as an infant, but since 6 months, he's been a dream napper. At 16 months he went from two naps a day to one longer afternoon nap. That nap has fluctuated in length based on his physical (and probably mental and emotional) developmental needs at each different stage. As recent as just two weeks ago he was napping 2-3 hours each afternoon consistently. But in the last few days he hasn't fallen asleep. At Christmas we put a lamp in his room so that he could turn a light on to read or play trains, which I think is good for him to have some downtime playing on his own if he's not going to nap. I don't think the lamp encouraged this new no nap phase to happen and I'm glad it's in there so that he can entertain himself rather than whine for me (which is what he used to do sometimes if he couldn't fall asleep or if he woke up early). I think it is probably naive to think that each afternoon he will entertain himself for 3 hours though. I should probably think of not putting him into his room until Tavin is about to lay down for nap closer to 3pm. Then he would have just 2 hours until 5pm (our standard "wake up" time from afternoon nap). It's hard to give up this little bit of me time I get (especially since this is when I get much of the work done for my job which I do from home just in any downtime I can catch). So, the coming days and weeks will probably be an experiment in what will work. Clearly we have some rules to set. I would prefer if he gave his body a chance to rest and left his light off for the first half hour or so, but how do you explain that to a 3 year old? Then, how do you explain a normal decibel level for play (especially when this kid comes with a naturally intense volume level in normal conversation)? Today he totally went over the line and banged on his door on purpose, so we've now set the rule about that. And yes, little brother was woken up (so, so frustrating!). So, not only are we in the midst of behavior issues, but now we have this to deal with! Oh, the exciting adventures of Mommyhood!