Parent has asked for 2 year old to have no sleep during 11 hour day with me

[childminder90210]

Title says it all really parent has asked for 2 year old child not to have a sleep during the day as npt sleeping well at night, but child is with me for 11 hours and I feel its a bit unrealistic but unsure how to deal with this as n
ever been asked this before. My response so far has been well all i can do is try. Have you ever had this before and how did you deal with it as I feel its a little unfair to expect a child to go over 11 hours without a sleep at that age when its quite busy some days here too. Any thoughts or experiences welcome thanks

article 31 of the UN CRC applies, the child's right to rest; you can try to keep child awake of course, in accordance with parental request but it's not in the child's best interests if they are tired and need sleep.

So I would say to the parent yes of course you can try but you will not, should not and cannot guarantee no sleep on any day

im a believer that sleep breeds sleep and many a time parents have said dont let them sleep 2hrs/after 3pm,etc or wont sleep at night/up till 10/11pm but if i ever babysit etc then child always in bed sleep by 7 and sleep 12hrs till 7am

sometimes i think children play their parents up as havnt seen them all day

an average child of 2 needs sleep, though there will always be those who give up sleep at 18mths lol

obv i dont ignore a parents request but it is very hard to keep a 2yr up all day esp if a busy day/in car/school runs

what i suggest is a sleep late am/before lunch so have all afternoon to tire out,rather then fall asleep shattered at 3/4pm during school run or even worse at tea

Some children in childcare have a very long day. I sometimes have toddlers with me from 7:30am in the morning so I expect the little ones do need a nap after a busy morning doing activites. Your mindee may cope a day here and there without a nap, but alot of children of this age have a catch-up nap, maybe once or twice a week. Maybe this is the way forward in decreasing his naps. I'm having an issue with my 3 yr old who gets up early and can't cope without a nap. Bedtimes can be tricky if I've not managed his nap properly. It can be a difficult transition, one which I'm going to have to tackle myself very soon.

knackered mum, tbh most children will happily fall asleep if used to a routine so yes prob does sleep well for your nanny,as used to a nap say 1/3pm after lunch

saying that in your case i would ask to limit to an hour an day or every other day as it is disrupting your nightime

Blonde that's rubbish. I was and am a saHM and my DDs both dropped sleeps at the age of just turned 2.

They saw me ALL day and if they napped they had problems going to sleep. It was NOT because they had not seen me all day. And you might be a big believer in sleep breeding sleep but these parents are not.

They need to have their request respected.

Mine both dropped their naps as soon as they turned 2, I would have preferred them to continue but they both had other ideas. Occasionally if they were in their pushchairs they would drop off and then we would have an absolute nightmare getting them down in the evening. Perhaps the parents of the mindees are having the same issue.

as i said some children do drop them, but some dont and it is very hard to keep a tired 2yr up all day, esp only had say 9hrs sleep if not in bed asleep till 9pm and awake at 6am - yes its a viscous circle

obv any childcarer should respect the parents views, but it is sometimes impossible to keep a toddler awake esp if older children and school runs - hence why i suggest a morning sleep

my point was that often parents that have nannies say that their child/ren wont settle at night, yet if the nanny puts them down they will

depends is he/she closer to three in age?
maybe she/he doesn't sleep at a reasonable time if napping? dc2 is like that, if taking a nap in nursery there is no point in bedtime before 10pm...

btw we introduced 'quit time' instead. cuddle up und read stories so dc gets a rest.

thats what i have done in the past with those children whose parents have said please stop the sleep

quiet time/looking at books/ceebeebies for 30/60mins

if a child isnt going to bed at nightime and settling then yes cut out their sleep but you cant go from 2hrs a day to nothing, so either cut down to an hour an day for a week or two then no sleep or allow a sleep every few days

Blondes, I agree with that as if our nanny babysits then dc go to sleep at night!

I agree with Blondes.

It seems the parents are not putting their child's wellbeing first at all. If he wasn't overtired he would fall asleep v nicely and happily at bedtime in the evening. Keeping a 2 yo awake is simply cruel.

But he doesn't sleep when he DOES have a nap Ghoulia

Oh blimey, some slightly hysterical responses here. Cruel? Against the UN convention on children's rights?! Look, some kids actually DO sleep better without a nap and I think it's up to a parent to decide whether their child falls into that category. My DD dropped her nap at that sort of age. I didn't want her to and persisted with it for as long as possible, but for some wierd reason even 30 minutes daytime sleep seems to knock around 2 hours off her night time sleep resulting in a permanently miserable and exhausted little girl. Since I stopped her napping altogether she does a solid 12 hours every night and is much happier.

I don't think it's unfair or cruel of the child's parent to ask you to try this as a solution to their sleep problem.

I DO appreciate though (as a childminder) how hard it is if you have to get out with the 2 year old in the buggy so they then fall asleep and if they are so tired and grumpy that it makes it hard or impossible to do your job. I'd give it a good try for a week and see how it goes.

I don't think that reminding practitioners that the rights of the child should be at the heart of their practice is hysterical

If the parents would like the nap taken away due to sleep issues of an evening, I would ask the parents to kick-start the new routine over the weekend, or the time he isn't with you. The parent can then decide if it's working ok or if he needs a much smaller nap (40 mins) to keep him going until bedtime. It's a very tricky time with nap dropping as some children only adapt to the loss of a nap over a period of time, and not going cold turkey, which I don't feel is any good for a child. Also, I found in the early weeks of a child dropping their nap, they are exhaused by tea time and they're really hard to keep awake (which is ok when they are home and in PJ's), but some children don't leave their childcare until 6pm. Hope you can work through the change without too much of a problem.

I would agree if we weren't talking about dropping a nap at the age of 2. Something that, in some cases, actually BENEFITS the child. The child has a right to get as much sleep as they need to be happy and healthy, sometimes a nap actually interferes with that. To imply that a parent is cruel or acting against a child's rights to want to drop their nap at the age of 2 absolutely smacks of hysteria to me.

There is a huge variation between 2 year olds in terms of sleeping needs etc.

I agree that you need to try to respect the wishes of the child's parents - my ds was a terrible sleeper at 2 and it really, really isn't pleasant to be up a few times in the night then up for the day at 5.30am with a full working day ahead...

If the child isn't able to cope, then you need to talk it through with the parents.

'sometimes i think children play their parents up as havnt seen them all day'

This is defintely true in some cases (not all, BigFat). Children go to bed easily and straight to sleep with nanny, but up until midnight with parents. It's not the sleep that's changed, it's who is putting them to bed!

I'm glad none of you encountered dd1 when she was little, she never slept, 10 mins in the morning and 10 min in the afternoon were her maximum, from 2 months old! Nursery were convinced that we were wrong and they would get her to sleep, strangely she wouldn't sleep for them either, whatever they did. Some children just don't need much sleep, she still doesn't.

Ds however is 3 and he still usually has a sleep, he didn't today so probably will tomorrow. It is almost impossible on a school run for them not to fall asleep in a pushchair if they are tired. I would raise the issue of the school run, if it is not their children whom you are collecting then maybe they need to find alternative childcare. I find with ds that any sleep before 4pm has little impact on him, but after 4pm and it will be a problem. Maybe highlight that skipping the morning sleep will make it more likely that they sleep later in the day. I would maybe try to limit the sleep a little bit, or try and encourage a sleep just every other day.

DD has always been a clockwork sleeper. She needs 12 hours sleep every day - pretty much whenever she goes to bed, she will wake 12 hours later. And by choice she will always be in bed by 1930. From 15 to 18 months she slept every day without fail from 1330 to 1500. Then she stopped sleeping during the day - and believe me, as I was at home with her then I would have loved it if she had carried on napping!

When she first started nursery at 22 months she started napping again on those days, but then got into the swing of nursery but they kept her in the routine of napping during the day, with the result that she would be up until 2030, 2100, even 2200 one time. She just didn't need the nap. Eventually nursery got the message and stopped putting her down and she is back into her routine of sleeping 12 hours at night. It was sooooo frustrating that they didn't have to deal with the fall out of her having a daytime nap but got the benefit of having her asleep for an hour or so!

OP, lots of two year olds don't nap any more, and you have to respect the parents' wishes on this, but they should understand that you can't guarantee no sleep at all eg if you are out and about and she falls asleep in the buggy. But please don't encourage her to nap because you think it's what she should have, or not tell the parents about her napping with you.

Oh and she was always far worse going to sleep with someone else!

Can you try it at least once and see how it goes? If he falls asleep in the buggy or is really difficult then at least you can tell the parents what happened. My 3yo will not go to bed til 9pm if she naps at all, I agree 2.2 seems a little young but children are all different.

I kept him awake all day today which resulted in him falling asleep whilst eating his dinner. So I advised that I felt a 30 min sleep very early on would just carry him through his long day and so he would nt be irritable at pick up time and parents could enjoy the time before bed time.

I hate handing over irritable grumpy children to parents who have been out at work all day and feel that the needs of the child should come first and he clearly needs a sleep to get through a long busy day in childcare.

All children are different and different things work for different people but the most important thing is that the child is happy and content. AFAIK he is going to bed ok but waking in the night, but this is only a recent thing in last few weeks not a persistant problem