On the Mend?

Little by little we are recovering here.  Thomas feels better and his mood this morning was the best it's been in a while.  Tom put him down for his 1st nap and he woke up after 20 minutes. We've been struggling with the early nap waking for a few weeks now.  It's a mystery.  The morning nap was good, but the afternoon nap all of a sudden was only 45 minutes. He wakes up and can't go back to sleep. It's not enough sleep for him, and we are at a loss.  Teething could be the culprit, then he got a cold, and who knows if we are being consistent enough with how we respond. This morning, though, he woke up after only 20 minutes.  We decided to let him work it out on his own. Fortunately, after 13 minutes of crying and yelling he went back to sleep. We've decided that we are going to handle the 2nd nap the same way.  Before his nap starts, we'll give him some Tylenol to deal with the teething if he needs it, suction out his nose if he's congested, and then let him work it out.  Our pediatrician has told us to handle this like a sleep training issue and to do what we do at night... so, he'll have to cry some.  Since it's a nap, however, we've picked an ending time for the crying and if he hasn't gone back to sleep, we'll call the nap done and try again later.  I tried this the other day and it didn't work, but he is not the kind of kid who calms down and goes to sleep with us in the room.  Oh boy- he's awake again and not very happy about it.