DD is 2, nearly 2.5. She goes to nursery three days per week and I have her the other two (DH and I both off at the weekends).
For a long time now, she has refused her naps on her days at home with me/us, so we stopped trying to persuade her and it worked well. She would go to bed at 7pm with no fuss, straight to sleep, and that would be her till 7-8am the next day.
However, she was still napping for an hour (or just under) at nursery on those days.
Recently we noticed that on the days she napped at nursery, bedtime was a complete and utter carry on. She was running wild in her cot until after 9pm, refusing to sleep (although she looked tired), shouting, singing etc. It would then be near impossible to waken her for nursery the next day. We tried shortening her nursery naps to 20-30 mins but it made no difference.
So a couple of weeks ago we asked the nursery to drop the naps altogether, which they were happy to do, they agreed she was phasing them out anyway and said it was getting harder and harder to persuade her to lie down for a sleep.
It has worked, in as much as she's exhausted when she comes home and will have her tea, a play and a bath then go straight to sleep at 7pm. But tonight, omg she was just so, so tired when she came home. She got up at half six this morning (crow on her windowsill woke her early) and it has just ruined her. The state she was in. White as a sheet, clearly very tired and unhappy.
I feel a toddler should be able to cope with getting up half an hour earlier than usual. I am beginning to wonder if cutting her naps altogether was the wrong thing to do. She just looked so tired and unhappy.
But if she'd slept at nursery, she'd be bouncing off the ceiling tonight.
For the record, I have told the nursery if they feel she's struggling through the day just let her nap, I don't want her suffering and unhappy. But it seems they didn't do that today.
What's the right thing? 