Importance of sleep...? Bit long, sorry.

[Octaviapink]

My 14mo dd goes to a nursery three days a week where they claim to follow the child's normal routine. Her routine is to get up about 5am and be ready for her first nap of the day by about 9ish. I put her down at 9 and she sleeps for an hour or so, then she has another hour in the early afternoon, with bed around 6.30pm

When she's at nursery, though, they never (despite repeated verbal and written requests) put her down for her morning nap. My personal opinion is that doing so interferes with the nursery's routine of a morning snack at 9.30 - I can't think of any other reason why they'd consistently fail to do what we've asked. She goes down for a single nap at lunchtime (usually less than an hour), and consequently is absolutely shattered to the point of tears and tantrums by the time she comes home at 6. She never gets into that state when she has proper sleep.

My question is - is there any way of making the nursery do what we want, and does anyone have any useful links to any studies on the effect of lack of sleep on development? I really worry that it's affecting her - she seems to make a complete pig of herself foodwise at nursery (I think she's eating for energy because she's exhausted) and also according to them is very inactive, whereas at home she's tearing around all over the place the whole time. Any thoughts?

Sad fact is that if you choose to have your child cared for in a nursery then there are some things that get compromised in the necessity to 'all do things together' and stick to the nursery routine. I would have thought that a decent nursery catering for under 2's would have a mid-morning and a mid-afternoon nap in the schedule. It may not affect their development but who wants a nursery full of tired, unhappy babies? If the nursery won't change their schedule then the solution is probably to change nursery.

That's really crap of the nursery - what's their excuse?

They should be following her routine and your wishes.

How often is she at the nursery? The book I most often refer to for sleep advice (that makes sense to me at least) says that a missed nap once or twice a week does not have to be a problem if the child gets good sleep the rest of the time. This is Health Sleep, Happy Child by Weissbluth btw. But if she is sleeping less than 1hr for second nap that is not enough so no wonder she is suffering. Accepting that sleep/routine will be compromised when using childchare is necessary but compromise to this extent is too far it would seem. Hope you can get them to comply more with your wishes or find an alternative.

If it wasn't for being pregnant and knowing that nursery is only for another 14 weeks or so then we would change, I think - apart from anything else there's ice cream and cake on the menu far more often than I like. Hopefully by the time I have to go back after second maternity leave we'll be able to get her and sibling in at a better place - unfortunately this one was literally the only acceptable one with places available (I tried six).

Thanks for the tip about the book, elvisgirl, I'll check that out.