To be really annoyed with nursery over this

[notaminorthing]

My two year old has mostly phased her nap out at home but still naps at nursery. This does mean a later bedtime but as long as she’s awake by 2. I’ve specifically asked before if she can be woken by 2.

However they keep not doing it and today she slept from 115 to twenty past three. It’s going to be around half nine by the time I get her down tonight. I have a reception aged child who I won’t be able to do homework or reading or anything with and even he is going to end up in bed later than ideal.

I have just stopped myself sending a really stroppy email and I’m going to ring in tomorrow but am I really being unreasonable in feeling a bit like I’ve lost trust? I’ve specifically asked and surely common sense should dictate that’s far too late a nap!

YABU to think it's acceptable for a Reception aged child to be doing homework.

They can cope for one night not doing homework. Surely baby can be in your arms while you read Reception aged child a bedtime story?

@Springbaby2023 i read with him, that’s the conducive learning, and through reading we practice phonics and we practice tricky words. That is important, reading with both children is an important part of my time with them, we’ve always read a lot. And it means a lot to me, especially now I get very little one to one time with DS.

She could, if she was a baby. As it is, she’s a wilful and pesky toddler who would snatch the book, push her brother, sing songs and have ds in peals of laughter when I’m trying to have a peaceful bedtime routine!

Well, why? Why would I wake her up early to have a nap I don’t really want her to have? I know that sounds like I’m being argumentative and I’m not, I’m just not seeing why I need to be the one to get up early when I just need nursery to wake her!

To change her sleep and readiness.

Why don’t you just read with both of them? Poor kid doesn’t have to do phonics every single evening. Let them take it in turns to choose a book while sitting on the sofa together.

I’ve explained why. They are silly, DD snatches the book, she isn’t really interested in DS’s books, he isn’t really interested in hers, neither of them concentrate and it isn’t particularly nice for anybody.

Her sleep is fine when she doesn’t nap for ages in the day!

We had this in our nursery, sometimes they would let him sleep until past 3 (they would go to nap around 12ish!)

My kid has always been bad to fall asleep (for example he is still awake right now in his bed, he is nearly 4…) so any long nap and past 2 would completely mess up the bedtime routine. And then it was a bad cycle: he went to bed late, he was tired in the morning, of course had a long nap again in the afternoon and it started again. I had to speak with the room leader and explain that this was impacting his night sleep. I don’t think you are being unreasonable.

We had this as DD phased out her nap. She napped at nursery long after she stopped napping at home. I asked nursery to limit naps to an hour and they did no issue. We had an open dialogue though so if she'd been under the weather or was tired, I would let them know. Equally if she specifically said she was tired then nursery would let me know and she could have a bit longer. It worked both ways.

I'm speaking about changing her readiness to nap earlier so she wakes earlier.

Nursery are being unreasonable. You are also unreasonable, talking about your 2 year old like she’s just some kind of annoying pest. She’s a young child who needs love and attention.

Sorry but I couldn’t get past the image of a 2yo….. checks notes….. body slamming into you and other DC. 😅😅😅😅 You sound quite dramatic tbh.

I'm pretty sure it's Ofsted who say the staff must not wake the children. However most nurseries ignore this (unless Ofsted are there) and follow the parents wishes..
At least they should have told you they couldn't follow your wishes. Then they have lied to you about how long she slept (unless a mistake has been made on the diary). It sounds like you aren't happy with the nursery in general though so I'd move her.

The thing is @Mumtobabyhavoc , I’m reluctant to do that as it’s a pattern I’d rather not get into (memories of hellish 5am starts with ds!) I am planning to speak to nursery and to really make it clear that although it wasn’t intentional, the long naps really do make for a very difficult evening for everybody and they have to be avoided. It is up to nursery; they can either not have her nap or nap for a short time.

I’ve always been more than happy with the nursery but I’m not thrilled about this. I do think they have been lax in this instance. It’s possible it was recorded incorrectly but I think she’d have been notably tired earlier otherwise.

OP- I think you’re getting a really hard time. I’ve worked on and off in early years for a very long time and your request is not even slightly unreasonable!

Baffled by all the replies to this!
Of course you’re reasonable to ask them to wake your child up by a set time. You’re paying them to look after her, and this is an extremely reasonable request. They don’t have a policy about not waking, so just very politely but clearly remind them tomorrow how important it is she doesn’t sleep past 2.15, regardless of the time she goes to sleep.
Can’t believe you had to deal with so many challenging replies! While it’s nice to hear so many people manage to easily entertain and 2 and 5 year old a lot of people could have just a little more empathy and remember how hard solo evening / bedtimes are, and that’s without a late nap messing it up.

Put the children to bed at bedtime. They can be upstairs resting or looking at books without being asleep.

She is an annoying pest. She’s loved beyond all measure, she’s beautiful, very bright, lots of fun and I would and have undergo anything for her happiness. She’s still an annoying pest; most two year olds are.

@Mrswhiskers87 , she will stand up and collapse into you when you’re sat down; not really sure what else to call it 🤷‍♀️ hardly dramatic unless it was meant as a put down.

O my sweet summer child.

To be fair there’s been a lot of balanced replies acknowledging it isn’t easy, especially solo! We will get there. Eventually …

Maybe their priority is doing what is best for the child, and not forcing a clearly tired child to wake up purely for your convenience?

The nursery my sons went to were always willing to follow my wishes regarding naps. I really wanted DS2 to keep napping when others were not, mainly because I was working full time, wanted an evening with him and was happy for him to go to bed around 8pm. I can't remember how old he was, but they would move him down to a younger room if possible, or find a little cubby in his room (not great but it mostly worked). So an entirely different problem to yours, but the staff worked with the parents (to a degree obviously).
I went over to breastfeed at lunch time for quite a while and would see staff wake little ones from naps as per parents' wishes....I didn't envy them - a bunch of grizzly toddlers, but I respected different parents have different wishes, as well as different home lives.