Experiences with younger babies in nursery please (under 9 months)

It says sleeping children should be frequently checked, which isn't the same as having a member of staff in the sleeping area.

The latest EYFS guidance 2025 says sleeping children should not be left unattended and always in the sight or hearing .....pretty hard if in a seperate room unless you have someone staring at a monitor....if working with other children that's pretty hard your going to be distracted.

Staff don't have to be constantly in the sleep room when children are sleeping.

That's a big generalisation in my experience not "All nurseries" do the same of anything and now a member of staff must be in the sleeping area whenever a child is sleeping I would think it's much harder as it takes a member of staff away from working with other children especially if it's one child sleeping. You then could have 3 staff one in sleep room, one changing nappy and one with all the others. Still within allowable ratio but not great for the children. In reality whatever is said they are going to want most to sleep at the same times.

This jist shows the importance of visiting as many different varieties and options of childcare in your area. Each one offers a different service and each family is looking for something different so keep searching to find the right fit for you and your baby. Don't be too rigid in your thinking aboit what each setting will offer and look to see how it might work for you.

Mine went at 6mo to quite a large nursery with many “rooms” so he was in a room of 6 babies all non walking. They moved up a room once they could walk so I felt that even though he was youngest he wasn’t in with babies all that different. He also only did 9-4 three days a week. (Because he was a bottle refusing bf baby). I let him catch up on sleep on his days with me.
You don’t say in the op how many hours you’re working but I would see if you can use holiday to reduce your hours for a few more weeks.

Honestly there's no point worrying about it, he's either going to sleep or not and it's out of your control.
What will probably happen is over the next few months he will get into the nursery routine and sleep longer when everyone else does.

Either just maximise your own sleep where you can. Alternate nights with your DH or take a shift each (eg one of you sleeps undisturbed 8pm-2am and the other 2am-8am for example), catch up at the weekends.
Or, if you wanted to be more proactive you could try to teach your baby to self-settle so it's more practical for staff to get him to nap, and get him on the same schedule as the nursery/other babies, probably half an hour morning nap and a long after lunch nap. You can do an extra cat nap on the way home if you want him to go to bed later.

Yes you’re worrying too much, to put it simply! Our second has only slept for more than 12-13 hours in a day on a handful of occasions since he was born. He’s doing perfectly fine, he just doesn’t want to sleep any more. He will find his own routine at nursery and you do just have to relinquish control. Try to stick to a regular bed time and a regular get up time, but yes, if he seems really tired, you could put him to bed a bit earlier (although in my experience that has always just resulted in an earlier wake up time but others have different experience). Sleep is so up and down the first few years, and I think a lot of it we don’t fully understand. Best to not get too hung up on it. So long as you are happy with the nursery and he seems to be enjoying it, I wouldn’t worry.

National sleep foundation recommends 12-15hrs total sleep for this age. Each childs needs are different and most online resources suggest generic routines that are are for higher sleep needs. There is no evidence for wake windows either, only total sleep. Most are moving towards 2 naps, or staying on 3 for a bit longer if the naps are shorter. Generally, if they are tired enough and not dysregulated/distressed and are being given opportunity, they will fall asleep. If they aren't after 15mins I'd try again half an hour later. They wont necessarily stay asleep though, especially in a new setting. My little boy started nursery later, around 12m, but was on 2 naps whilst most of his room were having a long lunchtime nap. They did put him down mid morning and supported him to sleep, but it only got 30 mins out of him as there was too much going on. Eventually his schedule just naturally shifted to theirs. Night sleep is more restorative I think, but as long as they are getting 10-11hrs overnight and are waking happy for the day, they are likely getting enough. In your situation I'd honestly try for longer awake, to get longer naps and a later bed, if they're ready. Nursery can just go off their cues and put them down when they're really sleepy, and you can hopefully adjust around this

I'm not sure that early bedtime is the cause of the early waking. I agree with you that he will need early bedtime because he's so tired from the day and lack of naps. But during my children's early waking periods, their bedtimes hadn't changed, and when we tried later bedtime to see if it would help, it didn't, and they just became crabbier from even less sleep!

I found the exact opposite. Childminders wouldn't accommodate different schedules at all, whereas all nurseries are happy to keep to whatever schedule the baby/child is on at home.

I'm also really surprised that a nursery wouldn't have a separate sleep room for babies.

OP, I would also work on fixing your sleep so you can have more than five hours.

What time are you home from work and when do you have to leave? Is there more opportunity for more than five hours if you do complete split shifts with DH?

I'm a childminder no I don't disappear into a dark room....but even the babies who need dark room, white noise and cosleeping have settled to sleep with me in the same room as the other llittle ones. I sit with them and work on settling to sleep it generally takes a couple of weeks fully. The other children are playing quietly on a pre set activity. Each child sleeps when it's right for them.

One of our MAIN reasons for choosing childminders was the much more flexible and easier nap situation. We used 3 different child minders and this was our experience:
Nurseries

• children are in age grouped rooms so the children within the group will be expected to need to nap about the same amount, even if the age group is developmentally quite large (12 months to 2 or 2-3 for example)
• Normally all the rooms in a nursery will be used as a regular "all the time" room by one age group of child.
• Therefore the only quiet space for a child to nap would be in his or her normal room, at the time when all his peers are napping or doing quiet time activities. This leaves little time for children to nap outside the schedule for their room.

• Generally have to have children of a range of ages to stick to legal ratios while looking after enough children to make ends meet.
• Therefore HAVE to have the ability for babies and young toddlers to nap a lot, while older pre-schoolers or holiday school children don't nap at all.
• Working in a house, often they will have a main playroom where everyone is, but then an adjoining or other room can be used for naps with a baby monitor if needed.
• Will often be willing to organise activities around who needs to nap when, planning outings when no-one is napping. Will like to encourage naps for a younger child as it gives them time to focus on activities for the older ones.

Given that you want to stick with the nursery, some things to try (you may already be): dummy, sleeping bag, comforter. Put the last two in your bed a few nights so they smell of you then send into nursery. Can they feed to sleep with the bottle? Or at least time it so he gets a bottle right before nap so he's nice and full and will hopefully sleep longer?
It all depends on their attitude tbh, and how interested they are in improving things. My daughter had several contact naps, once 3 hours long!, when she first started at nursery which I was thrilled they were happy to do. We got a lovely selfie of DD asleep on the lady's shoulder. Within a few weeks she'd got the hang of cot napping there though and was fine. I did send in a dummy despite not using one at home, and somehow she took it there, probably copying others, and that must've helped.

I agree with a pp that he would get more sleep with a childminder as he could nap in the buggy on school runs and out and about and also they often have a separate nap room set up which can be dark and quiet/white noise while the others play in a separate room.

It’s such early days and a big adjustment, it just takes time. The best thing you can do is not alter his bed time as it’s this that is reinforcing the early wake. I know it’s rough when they get home but he needs to be in a bedtime routine and then up and tired enough to adjust to the new nap schedule at nursery.

I mean this in the kindest of ways, but very bright children are being raised in war zones so a few weeks of longer wake windows isn’t going to affect his development. In addition, changing his setting again is potentially going to cause him more upheaval and uncertainty. If you’re otherwise happy with the nursery I would wait and see, discuss your concerns with them and see what they say. 40 minutes of rocking one child to sleep is probably impossible to justify though as how could they do that for every baby & care for the others.

For context DD went for a morning from 5m and often didn’t even really drink expressed breast milk, I’d send 3 bottles sometimes & she could come home with only 2oz being drunk and no sleep. Her sleep did improve though. The best advice I’ve ever had re: children is, there just isn’t always a reason for everything. Sometimes they sleep terrible just because, sometimes they stop liking something they loved just because. You can tie yourself in knots trying to problem solve sometimes but time is often the solution.

Having been a baby room manager in the past I have to be honest that nurseries aren't really set up for very young babies.

9 babies is going to be busy, busy, busy - no one is going to be timing wake windows.
I'd expect them to try for a morning nap, after lunch nap and maybe an afternoon nap if possible but there's not going to be an adult available for 40 minutes of 1:1 settling a baby.

Do they have a separate sleep room? If so I'd expect an adult to be able to spend maybe 15 minutes settling a baby but if they haven't fallen asleep then they'd need to be back in the main room and try again later.

Ultimately the babies have to either adapt to the general routine or catch naps as and when.

I'm a childminder now and find it easier to be responsive to naps in a day as you can just go out for a walk if necessary and the youngest sleeps in the buggy on the way to or from playgroups - they fit in like the youngest child in a family does.

The only way you're going to get "up to 40 minutes as he often needs extra support like feeding, rocking, pick-up-put-down, etc." is with 1:1 care at home.

The nursery environment just doesn’t really work with wake windows & naps for most young babies the same way they would be at home. Too much going on, too many distractions and even the best nursery staff cannot give the same time etc as you could at home because they don’t only have your baby to look after.

If you’re not prepared to look at a different setting though there’s nothing you can do really.

This is pretty normal. They aren’t going to spend 40 mins rocking a baby to sleep, nor are they going to repeatedly resettle when he wakes. No nursery will (or childminder for that matter), they’ve got too much else to do. You have to accept what he does in nursery will be different to home. It’s not ideal, yes it disrupts sleep at home, but it will get better as he gets older. Being flexible with your routine and allowing more catch up sleep on non nursery days is sensible. Working on self settling at home when you can would also be sensible. It’s not going to cause any long term issues and he will adjust. It does feel difficult to let go of control but it will get easier for you too.

Mine started nursery at 4 months and 5 months. Neither slept well until they dropped to one nap (at around 12 months) - both nurseries we’ve used had lunch at 1130 then the whole nursery was quiet and dark for 2 hours for afternoon naps. Prior to this, mine would have a couple of 40 minute naps per day, never more. We still managed to sleep train fine and they would sleep 13 hours at night. They both thrived at nursery but agree baby sleep is tricky in noisy environments where they all have different nap regimes. Hang on in there and it will get better.

to be clear I am not interested in a child minder, as my gut tells me this would be even harder for them than a staff of multiple people.

Nursery clearly isn’t working. You’d be daft not to at least contact some CMs and see what they say. You may be surprised.

@ThisSillyFawn I'm sending you a pm

Could you look at a nanny short term? Maybe for six months or a year? Once he's a little bit older he'll be far more suited to a nursery than he is now.

Honestly if it's taking 40 mins to get them down for a nap at home, with sleep support, I'd be suggesting they are not that tired. Many babies this age are moving to or are on 2 naps, so perhaps the wake windows are changing anyway. Mine was on 2 naps by 8m and before then only catnapped. Lengthening his time awake helped him sleep longer. I wonder if this isn't happening at nursery because it's unfamiliar- but eventually as he settles, the longer time awake should encourage longer naps there and should help push bedtime later. We found a big drop in sleep needs and increase in alertness at this age and as soon as we dropped to 2 naps he started sleeping so much better at night. It's so hard, you must be absolutely exhausted. But I will say that at this age, having a baby in childcare or even not, sleep will change so much and quickly, meaning there will be phases of bad and good sleep, night waking (to a degree) is completely normal. If he's only getting 2 short naps there tbough and the early night is leading to night waking and early mornings, could you add a 15min catnap on way home and do bed a fair bit later, to get you some more consolidated sleep? The average night length is 10-11hrs despite what sleep training culture has us believing, so yes if he's going down early this may be explaining the early mornings. Really understand about the formula issue - ours barely ate at nursery but it settled down after 5 weeks.