To be really annoyed with nursery over this

It's fair enough to sound off about the nursery. It's not fair enough to ask a question and then when people give their time to answer you, engage with your problem, you tell them they're rude and pompous and just generally give everyone who dares to disagree short shift. It's ok to be pissed off. It's not ok to be rude.

I agree that the nursery were unreasonable re. the nap. You're now being unreasonable using personal attacks to vent your fury about the nursery being unreasonable. Two unreasonables don't make a reasonable.

My two year old phased out her nap pretty early. With even a 20 minute nap she won't sleep until 11pm or midnight at night and then will wake at 7am the next day as normal - just absolutely shattered, the poor thing.

Without a nap she sleeps 7pm-7am happily, so 12 hours a day. With any sort of nap in the day she will only get around 8 hours of sleep (be knackered) and also continually wake up overnight, so get even less sleep. Don't ask me why she won't sleep at all if she naps, but it's true. And she needs no nap to sleep properly. It annoyed me when nursery insisted on keeping her nap because she wouldn't sleep overnight and was then continually knackered. I actually think it's pretty cruel on the kids!

(Rant over)

My Reception child was never asleep before 9pm and always did her reading whilst tucked up ready for bed. So 7pm might have been too late for your DC but it isn’t for all.

Oh my god I would be so pissed off too! That’s a ridiculously long nap for a child of that age and they were definitely just running with it for an easy life. I get it, it’s an insanely difficult and exhausting job they have to do, but still…

Our nursery always respected our request to wake our son up by X time, and even before it got to the stage where we had to cap the length of naps, they would message us if he was having an unusually long nap and would ask if we wanted them to wake him.

We looked around quite a few nurseries and all of them said that they would go with the parents’ requests on naps and timings.

I definitely wouldn’t complain or pull my child out of nursery over it, but I would
make your expectations clear and then decide what to do if they have a policy contrary to that.

Hope tonight isn’t too hellish for you.

You definitely aren't U about the wake time. I remember those days, naps past 2pm and up all night. Sent a measured email so you have a paper trail.

Is it worth just telling them not to let her nap?
”she was up until 9/10pm on Monday after her nap the other day, so can we have no more naps as she doesn’t nap at home anyway”
I’d be really annoyed too in your situation. But maybe, especially as she doesn’t nap at home it’s easier just to have the clear request as opposed to one that might get missed by certain staff members.
all the nurseries by me have a 9m+ wait list at the mo anyway, so changing her in protest will probably be more hassle

They can be more tired at nursery so can easily sleep longer. We had the same issue, requested no nap. When we went in the nap times were just read out as feedback for the day and there were some nudges and corrections by the ones who knew we didn't want them. We accepted it wasn't ideal but also if they were tired and needed one and didn't make a fuss. It didn't actually make any difference to bedtime routine..xxx

I hear you. I had this bloody battle with the nursery on the regular. Both of my girls dropped their naps at home at just over 1 (they are now 11 and 9 and they still hate sleep) and nursery wouldn’t heed it. Would make them lie on the bed even if they didn’t want to go to sleep (“we lay on the bed for half a hour but she would not close her eyes, the little monkey!” Yes because she does. Not. Need. A. Nap - why are you forcing this?!)

3pm onwards is danger nap territory. I’d be livid too.

Actually, apologies OP, I'm being too harsh. My core points are around two issues.

It's about this one child, not the rest of your family, so focus on that. You've made a request with regards to the child they're looking after and that's sufficient.

Be firm, but understanding that this change may not happen reliably/consistently over night. It's tough for nurseries dealing with tired children whose routines and being changed. It will take some time to instigate the new pattern.

To be fair to the nursery I think your child is at that very awkward age where they have mostly dropped the midday nap, but still need it some of the time. She simply wouldn't be napping at all if not tired. That does mean you are in the catch 22 of they can't do without the nap at all but if you try to keep them awake or wake them early on days that they are sleepy then you may simply end up with tired trantrumming behaviour all afternoon. So you are stuck between that or the child not wanting to go to bed until late. Fortunately it is a reasonably short lived phase so I'd suggest riding it out, and encouraging the 2 year old to take up some less disruptive evening pastimes.

I don't think you're being unreasonable to expect the nursery to follow through on a simple request re. waking her at 2pm.

I do think you're unreasonable to ask if you're being unreasonable (you clearly don't think you are) and then telling everyone who disagree with you that they're rude/pompous etc.

I would complain to the nursery about their failure to follow your nap time request. I would also work on being able to do homework with your DD around. If she decides she needs less sleep/starts going to bed later you'll lose this time anyway. Have a plan that works for both of them. It is doable.

Parent your 2yo then. Give them something different to do for the 5 mins homework takes

YANBU, it's very frustrating when they sleep for hours at nursery and then won't sleep at night.

I know for DS3 this was a problem for us - they had a policy of not waking a sleeping child. I can understand that from their side, it wasn't about ease, it was more that they all slept in a communal room and they didn't want to disturb the others by going in and waking one child who might be grumpy/cry out or need a lot of adult presence (which would take an adult away from the main group and therefore affect ratios)

Unfortunately it doesn't work like that at her age.

Honestly just tell them not to let her nap.

They’ll just stop reporting the correct time she’s woken otherwise. They’re not going to wake her on time. A woken child is a grouchy child and they’re on ratios anyway.

She doesn’t need the nap if she doesn’t nap with you; and if she does decide she needs a nap or two a week to catch up, she can do them on any of the five days you have her. Just no more nap from tomorrow. She’ll get used to it quickly.

I'm a childminder and my sleep policy says i won't force children to stay awake. I'm happy to cap it, but I'm so tired of dealing with fractious and challenging behaviour until 6pm so parents can go home and put them straight to bed. Its not fair on the child or me, or the poor other children who have to be around it.

If parents don't like it, they are free to move on to another setting where they will, I don't mind.

Well do that then.

Though I can only imagine how much more disruptive finding and settling into a new nursery would be to the family routine.

I've just stumbled upon this thread and I just wanted to say we have a similar age gap and when DC2 was 2 they behaved this way too if I tried to do homework or listen to DC1 read! They're 7 and 4 now (youngest not in school yet) and I'm happy to report it's much easier on that front. Although we also now have a 1yr old so that complicates things for us.

Anyway, I think the nursery should be doing as you ask. I'd speak to her key worker tomorrow about it.

I would send the strongly worded email. Might stop you feeling so 😡

Not sure why you’re getting so much grief. It’s fine to expect that they cap her nap. I’m assuming she’s in a room with some children that nap and some that don’t, everyone I know with a child within aged 2-3 caps the nap in some way! The 5 year old’s routine makes no odds, I wouldn’t mention that, I’d just say you want them to follow your request.