I have a 16 month old that we are now just beginning to transition and I have lunch at 11-12 and she is in bed by 12 and sleeps through till after 3 as she is the last one I get up.

I probably would continue the way you are now but get all the busy things out of the way before the child goes down in the morning and then while she is down have craft time which works out best anyways if the babies are out of the way. Leave her in bed for 1 1/2 hours whether she sleeps or not. It may be the business of daycare that is tiring her out so it is more of a stress tired than a sleepy tired. If you can then hold her off from going down so early in the afternoon you can put her down a bit later and get her up just before hometime. Parents of new kids also forget that sometimes their child slept in later in the morning but now they have to get them up which means they need to adjust their sleep time. So a child that gets up at 6 to dress, eat and come to daycare for 7am should really be in bed by 6pm which of course rarely happens.