Nursery Sleep

[LightHouser]

This may be an impossible challenge but I'm after ANY new tips please!

My 15mo has been in nursery one day a week since she was 6mo. She loves it. It's a small, calm, friendly nursery and she has had no trouble, and in fact has a lovely time there - hooray!

The problem is that she has such a lovely time she won't sleep there, very occasionally she will but not often. They have a quiet sleep room with cots but when in there she points at the other 'babas' if they try to stand and rock her and protests if they try to put her down. If they stand and rock her in the main room she will sometimes sleep but mostly struggles to get down and play.

At home I just keep asking her if she's tired and she usually says yes at some point, and we lie down together and she sleeps. She sometimes has milk for a nap but not always. She only sleeps for 45 minutes once a day but this is just enough it seems, her nighttime sleep is no problem. Nursery have tried this and it doesn't help them, she just says 'no' and keeps playing. They try and rock her to sleep anyway and she has none of it. Early on I tried to build up a sleep association with a special blanket that I sent into nursery, but it didn't work so I gave up after a couple of months of that. She has never taken a dummy. They can't rock in a pram (we don't have one, they don't have one, don't think there is space anyway).

So, this hasn't bothered her or me particularly as it's just one day a week, but I'm about to increase her time to three days a week and would therefore like to find a way to help her sleep there. Ideas very welcome, thank you in advance...

[FATEdestiny]

Have you asked nursery what they suggest?

I would give them the lead here, rather than insisting they do it the same was as you do at home. They could get her sleeping much better when at nursery.

Often nurseries do a shush/pat method on a playmat for naps. It takes consistency but could get her sleeping there.

I would also drop asking her if she's tired and try instead for naps when you/nursery think she needs it.

[LightHouser]

Yeah, and they only really suggest rocking, patting, shushing and if none of those work, giving up :-(

I've never insisted before, just given suggestions when thy have said they are struggling to get her to sleep. Asking her is a new thing, because I suddenly found that worked better for us at home rather than going to a lot of effort when she's really not tired enough. Primarily I watch her for signs of tiredness and even though I have begun asking her, if she ever said no and I thought I knew better I'd still say 'well let's try anyway!' :-D ... hasn't happened yet though, she usually says yes either straight away or a few moments later. So it's still me in control but she thinks she is!!

Prior to this it's always been when I / nursery think she needs sleep.

Next time she's in I'll ask them (in a nice way) if they can try a bit harder, in advance of her increasing her days, and see if they have any suggestions.

[FATEdestiny]

Definitely tell nursery to try harder! A lot harder, not just a bit. I'd be really annoyed if they just gave up.

Sleep is a really important skill and is important to development. If a toddler was refusing to eat anything at nursery, one would hope they wouldn't just go "well, we tired and she wont so she had nothing to eat". Sleep is the same. It might be hard work, but it is so vitally important that they should keep going, keep trying, carry on and on until they find something that works.