Routines and nursery - your thoughts please

[Taler]

My DD is starting nursery this week. She will be there for 2 full days a week.

We have a fairly good routine at home - milk feeds approx every 4 hours (4 a day), 2 solid feeds although am just starting to introduce a 3rd. She has breakfast and dinner. And her naps she has one in the morning, one at lunch and most of the time one in the afternoon.

What I'm wondering is how her being at nursery will affect her routine.

The nursery staff are great and have already said they will try and follow the routine where possible but I'm realistic enough to realise that it'll be impossible for them to do so with everything.

My main concern is to do with her sleeps. If she gets over tired she's very difficult.

Am keen to hear others exeperiences of this please.

How old is your LO? My DS goes to nursery 1 day a week and never sleeps as well as he does at home, but he is fine, they have so many toys and other children they are just on the go, and then I let him catch up on sleep on his days at home with me, when I'm not at work. I worried about it lots at the beginning but they are so adaptable. Your little one may get tired and grumpy but the nursery staff will have dealt with it hundreds of time and take it all their stride.

I'm sure it will be great.

Thank you. She is 8 months old.

It will be fine, I am sure. It is in the nursery's interests to stick to your routines where possible, and they will be skilled and experienced in doing so. Good luck!

Before ds went to nursery I asked what their overall nursery routine was. They had lunch at 11 & tea at 4. At the time he was ff + 3 meals that were in this pattern so I stuck to it. That meant his sleeps, both before lunch & before tea fitted in nicely.

I'm a realist & thought it's much more sensible to accept that somewhere looking after 90 kids has to have its own routine & it's easier for us to fit in with that than the other way around. All we needed to do was a couple of tweaks & it all worked fine.

Our nursery accommodated DD's routine up to a point, then they gradually got her into their routine. She was full-time though, and was in their routine by the time she was about 10/11m.
It's become apparent over time (DD is now 2) that DC tend to do one thing at nursery and one thing at home - naps, eating...!
I wouldn't worry about it, it all gets simpler in terms of naps & mealtimes etc as they get older and they all end up doing the same thing at around the same times anyway.
Nursery is a very stimulating environment & you'll probably notice the difference on her nursery days!

Please don't worry. A good nursery will work with you to try to keep the routines going although, as PP said, if you can work with them and be prepared to adapt slightly that will help too.

My only advice would be not to be too cross when things don't quite go according to plan. I remember being grumpy one day when I picked up DC at 5pm and they were asleep which most definitely wasn't part of my PFB routine. Looking back I'm not sure what I expected them to do .

DS was 1 when he started nursery (just 2 days a week). At the time he was on 2 naps a day. The norm in his nursery was just the one nap after lunch. What I used to do was get him off for an early nap in his buggy then walk him round the park or go for a coffee, and then wake him up just before breakfast stopped being served. Not ideal but doable as I didn't work. He took a few days to settle but eventually started napping at lunchtime with the other babies. After a few months I stopped the early morning nap on nursery days and just accepted he was more tired those days. He still kept to usual routine on non nursery days though.