Am I being too precious about baby nap timings at nursery?

Maybe I've just been really lucky with my nursery, but they did everything they could to accommodate the existing nap schedules wherever possible. The only exception to this was once the children were moved to the toddler room and were generally only one one nap a day, and if their nap was too early they would miss the lunch which wasn't ideal so I was more than happy for them to keep my child up until after they had eaten and then they all sort of fell asleep together. At 13 months though, I would expect a nursery to try to accommodate a child's existing schedule.

A pretty standard way to transition down to one nap, is to cap the first one. You're at the stage that this should be happening anyway.
Ask them to do 9-9.30/9.45 max and then again down at 12.30/1 for 1.5hrs.
They will gradually drop their morning nap and have one long lunchtime one, which is the aim anyway.

@coffeeandsleep Found your post and wondered how your LO got on with the nap schedule when starting nursery? Mine is just starting in the toddler room (15 months yesterday) and has struggled with the 2-1 nap transition so far. She woke at 6.40am today and finally napped at nursery at 1.55pm after a lot of tears! Wondering how yours adjusted with the schedule there?

This ☺️

If you mean by offering two naps, I think that’s probably unrealistic. If she naps once a day at 12:30 five days a week, she’s going to continue that at the weekend, in my experience.

I’d definitely want to ensure that she’s getting enough sleep, though. At 13 months, my son still needed two naps. We were aware he couldn’t move up rooms until he only napped once at lunch, as the ratios upstairs were 1:4 and they needed everyone to nap around the same time, but they were happy to accommodate this in the Movers room.

Agree with the pp saying shorten the first nap to 45 min. With her current naps she will hardly have much opportunity to play alongside the toddlers her age, it could be 5 hours of the day that she is asleep or they are.

Not necessarily. We looked at some but they were bound by school drop off/pick up so they were actively trying to not have a morning nap or and the afternoon one finished by 2.30pm.

That was one of the reasons we preferred the nursery when DD was younger as they went with the flow and let them sleep when they showed signs of being tired. And that included over lunch and they fed them afterwards.

My son started at a similar age and was solidly on 2 naps at home. I knew he wouldn't do that at nursery because he has very bad FOMO(!) so until 18 months he would have one nap on nursery days (3 days a week) and 2 naps every other day. He was a bit of an overtired mess for the first few weeks but settled into the routine quickly.

I get why nursery can't fit to your schedule but I get why it's so frustrating when you know what your baby needs. Hopefully you'll find a rhythm that works for you, like we did.

I think baby just tends to do a different schedule at nursery. Mine only had 1 nap with me at that age but sometimes wld have 2 at nursery or sleep a ridiculous amount of time more than that they wld at home.

I wouldn't change ur routine at home.

YABU

The chances are your baby will be all over the place when first starting, doing 2 naps for a few weeks and then moving to 1 nap more consistently.
Theres nothing wrong with them going to 1 nap around 14/15 months.

I always thought it was just part of nursery and never really questioned it tbh. My little one started nursery at 13 months too and we had to get on board with the one nap a day situation. He was gozzy with tiredness when he came home but we’d just do tea, bath and bed by about 6pm to accommodate for it. Hes been there 6 months now and it’s his normal routine even when not in nursery.

Our nursery has individual routines followed in the baby room which is up until 12/14 months. In the toddler room they will still allow a morning nap but afternoon nap is at the same time for everyone. This is just part of using a nursery and starting them in the toddler not baby room

They don’t do as they please but the nursery professionals will be looking after a number of children and have a tried and tested routine.

So she should still be sleeping in that room and should be allowed to sleep.

How old is she now? It could be that by the time she hits 13 months, her sleep pattern adjusts anyway.

Often parents say they are happy for their child to follow the lead of the nursery in terms of sleep and in baby rooms they really should be allowing the sleeps the baby needs. Often the babies and toddlers fall into this routine anyway.

As they move through into the toddler room, the majority of 18 months and upwards are only on one sleep anyway and this is often after lunch.

I don't doubt for one minute someone will be on here saying nurseries are the work of the devil and force sleeps to suit them but amy good or outstanding nursery won't do that.

Believe it or not, the vast majority of us who work in the early years actually love our jobs!

Don't try and change things now, either the nap time or the nursery. And I know this is going to sound patronising and I really don't mean it - but don't worry, it will work itself out. Toddlers change so much and so fast, this could be a complete non issue in 4 weeks.

DD dropped morning and afternoon naps by the time she was 16 months, and guess what, the nursery coped just fine (me not so much). The main problem I had was bringing her home in the car - 10 min journey and she'd be out like a light at 5.30pm!

DS was 1 when he started nursery and a dedicated twice a day napper. Nursery claimed they’d offer a morning nap but he just wouldn’t/couldn’t do it when it wasn’t part of the core routine. He very quickly adjusted to one nap at nursery and carried on napping twice a day at home until he naturally dropped it about three months later.

They will do as they please and you will just have to go with it. IME, you have no control when you leave DC in their care.

Nurseries and schools are designed for the convenience of the adults who run them, not the children, I'm afraid.

So, yabu for that reason.

We are flexible and follow the babies nap schedule. The younger the baby the more they need to choose their times. Older babies do tend to get into a pattern of napping after lunch but that tends to be over 18mths.

So she's going into the toddler room at 13 months old?

That's a surprise. I've never worked or ran a nursery where they take toddlers that young. Usually they are in a baby room till the age of 2 as this is when the ratio changes from 1 to 3 to 1 to 4 (or the nursery can choose to do 1 to 5 if they wish under the amended ratios)

I'd recommend looking for a nursery with a seperate baby room.

DT’s were six months old when they started nursery. We let the nursery work their magic on naps times - they quickly adapted to the nursery routine.