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!

You actually are not being unreasonable to want nursery on board with your sleep routine, you're not unreasonable to find out why they won't wake DC. Our nursery has a no wake policy, but I have the opposite problem, my DD won't nap unless every other child is and wakes up at the drop of a pin.
But I do think you're massively unreasonable to claim later bedtime means you can't help your older DC, especially when you managed to update this thread 19 times in an hour tonight between 18:38-19:38, seem like that would have been a good time to do homework.

Some of these replies 🤣 YANBU. I have 3 DC one is a 2yo and one is a 5yo and absolutely no way can I do homework with the 2yo around! Or anything that requires actual attention because…🌪️ and yes they are little pests at that age.

i would be annoyed and would definitely ask again. I need that time with the other DC and also down time for myself!

She will be tired tomorrow in turn because she went to sleep at gone nine o clock in the evening. Messing about with a child’s perfectly normal sleep patterns isn’t an act of kindness.

It really is such a relief when people reply like this!

How many kids are there? I'm questioning nursery's ability to have separate schedules for kids.
Also, re my previous suggestion, I'm thinking it wouldn't take that long to change your dc's habits.

If you have a busy day and need an early night, do you force yourself to stay awake in order to stick to your own arbitrary routine or do you let yourself get more sleep?

Children are humans that need more sleep some days than others. Just like adults do,

This was happening with my 2 year old so I asked them not to let him nap. He’s tired when I pick him up but goes straight to sleep at 7pm.

I don’t especially want to change her habits; her habits are mostly fine. They have lunch at around 1130 and the children start going down for their naps around 12. DD doesn’t nap then because she just isn’t tired - doesn’t need it, so they run for ages to get her to nap and eventually she cedes around 115-130, but then if they wake her at 2, she’s not slept long and is grumpy so I suspect that’s when they just let her sleep for ages. It would be easier if they just didn’t try to get her to sleep at all, which may be what ends up happening to be honest; I’ll see what they say when I speak to them.

No, indeed and that works to a point. As I’ve said, she generally doesn’t nap with me but sometimes she will if she’s woken up early or has a bad night. That’s fine and that’s one of the reasons that I don’t want to cap the nap at nursery altogether. But staying up really late and sleeping for hours in the day isn’t ideal for anyone.

I think the easier solve is waking her an hour earlier in the morning.

I would never be unpleasant about a two year old. I think you very much misunderstood what I was getting at. Think about it. 😉

Anyway, there’s only one thing I can suggest re getting your child to sleep earlier at night and that is to give up work and (and I know this is a revolutionary idea) actually bring them up yourself.

It's Ofsted's position that if a child needs sleep, they need sleep. The child's needs come before the wishes of the parent. The nursery would be in trouble for depriving your child of sleep.

Some of my very worst days have been when I’ve posted regularly on here. I can keep half an eye on MN and half an eye on a child. I can sit watching TV with the children and MN at the same time. I do believe you know this. That is different to giving actual attention to a child - that is very difficult to do with a two year old around.

I think those sorts of comments are quite spiteful and come under the bracket of the points raised on the site stuff thread about snide, unpleasant and needlessly hectoring remarks. I’m not asking to anyone’s opinions about how I spent my evening. It took me a long long time to get both children in bed, as I did so, I posted on here, mea culpa, I don’t want anyone pointing that out because quite bluntly I don’t really care, it isn’t the point of the thread and it isn’t remotely the same as sitting with your child having proper quality time with them.

This seems reasonable

Yep this is an issue with some nurseries. My chap had dropped his nap at 14 months and they were shocked and said that naptime was when they did lunchbreaks and they would now need to have an extra staff in the room just for him. They rang me on 12 seperate occasions saying he was unwell coincidentally always during naptime. I had to just switch places in the end.

You say you’re so desperate for ‘quality time’ with your DS, yet as others have pointed out, you spent all evening on Mumsnet while ‘keeping half an eye’ on your children who are having too much screen time while you scroll your phone. YABVU.

Also I love how some people think that nursery should be able to manage a perfect, personalised schedule of multiple children but some of you can’t cope with 2 of your own at the same time (I.e. do a bit of homework with the school child).

Very sad to hear a child described by their mother as an ‘annoying pest’. You come across very self-centred and like your children are an inconvenience to you. You (presumably) chose to have them - maybe try less time on your phone and more time with them.

That's life when you outsource care for your child. Your child is one of several they have to cater for.

Children are not robots. Sometimes they sleep right on schedule. Sometimes for no discernible reason, they switch things up.

It's just one day. You may well have many more. Let it go

Ring the nursery every day at 2pm to ask if she’s awake. They’ll soon get fed up n ensure she’s awake. My nursery will not allow any child to sleep past 3, purely from a safeguarding perspective

And likely dismiss her from nursery.

It's only one night a week though really isn't it? Friday your DP /DH is back and it's weekend so bedtimes not as important surely. So it's just Mondays. I don't understand how that can impact your life as much as you say..

Turn your phone off and the tv off and have bloody quality time with them then. You don’t have to have one on one time with them each day. Your reception age child doesn’t need to do phonics seven days a week, sounds like you manage that six other days so that is fine (and way too much to be honest).

The reason you’re having a hard time here isn’t because of you wanting the nursery to cap the nap, that’s a reasonable ask. It’s because you’re making out that you absolutely can’t deal with two kids at a time so need to pack your pesky two year old off to bed while you can spend time with your darling older child. And yet you expect nursery to manage multiple children at a time, you are a teacher yourself, and you are able to spend a lot of time on mumsnet while said kids are awake!

I’ve explained this at length. But how I ended up spending my evening isn’t the purpose of the thread. It’s just posters wanting to be sanctimonious. I could be the shittest mother in the world who ignores my two children daily; it doesn’t mean it’s right for nursery to ignore a request from me and to let DD sleep all afternoon.

@notaminorthing but your DD isn't sleeping all afternoon. She's just napping later than you want her to.