sleep - do you think this is bad?
Cooper has never slept a 12 hour night. For that matter, neither has Ben. Cooper seems to be able to do 7-9 hours and then he's just up. and so if he goes to bed at 9, he often (not always) will wake up around 4 or 5 and be AWAKE. I can spend an hour nursing him and rocking him and he's just awake. Not unhappy or anything, but it's too early to get up. Often by 6 I can get him to fall back to sleep with me, and we sleep for an hour and we're up. It's awful.
Now, sometimes he used to be able to just sleep through til 6:30 but that seems like it's not happening lately.
So a few times last week he took a really late nap, and went to bed late, and it seemed better, so last night i kept him up til 10:30 and he slept from 10:30-6:30 without waking up. And more importantly, I did too! 
So then he took a 45 minute nap this morning, and now he's taking an afternoon nap that is usually from 2-5, plus or minus 30 minutes.
So in the end, he will get 8 hours at night, and 4 during the day. Instead of "most" kids who do more like 10-12 at night and another 1-2 during the day.
I'm thinking that I'm going to do this for a little while, just to get him used to not waking in the night and not needing me for anything, and then I'll nudge his bedtime back slowly? And probably at some point he'll switch to one nap too.
What do you think? Is there anything inherently bad to getting a shorter night like that?
FWIW, Ben has always required less sleep than "they" say. He's always been on the low end and I dont' think has ever even once slept a 12 hour night. He goes to bed at 9, but doesn't fall asleep til after 10, and he's up by 7:30 and he takes a 1.5-2 hour nap. So he gets 9 at night and another 1.5 during the day.
Re: sleep - do you think this is bad?
Sounds like it's working for you both for now, and that is what counts.
M dropped naps about a year ago, but goes down at 7:30 and sleeps 12 hours. He will nap when sick or it's been a super busy/long day.
Hopefully it will all work out when you move it back.
Do what works! K goes to bed between 10pm and 11:30pm, and wakes up between 8:45 am and 10 am. I feel horrible sometimes, but DH and I are both night people, and I work until 10pm, so selfishly I like it when she's up when I get home from work.
We've been trying to push her bedtime early bit by bit, but she fights it big time. Right now I think I'm just going to accept it and figure since she's happy and not cranky, it's working for her. She does a few naps a day, which last anywhere from 40 min to 2.5 hrs.