How do nurseries put babies down for a nap?

[ReeseWitherfork]

Anyone know how nurseries put babies down for naps? Particularly interested in babies around a year old and where there is a separate room with multiple cots for all the babies. Thanks!

(Don’t worry I will ask nursery too but settling in sessions aren’t for a while and would like to get into the right sort of habits now.)

Ours had cots or floor mats. Mine both preferred the floor mats and would just put themselves down after lunch. It’s probably good if baby can fall asleep independently and isn’t reliant on complete silence but otherwise I wouldn’t worry too much. Nothing you ever do at home will match the nursery atmosphere with all the other babies there. They adjust!

What age were they on floor mats? Our nursery has both but my eldest wasn’t on a floor mat until he was almost out of the baby room… maybe 18 months onwards? They said they prioritised the cots for the smaller ones.

Twin 1 is good at self settling. She needs a couple of minutes of quiet first though and I wasn’t sure if nursery would be able to offer this (what with having to look after so many others) so was debating trying to get her to rely on that less.

Twin 2 makes a dramatically loud song and dance about every nap time and I am worried nursery will abandon trying to put her down if she’s too noisy and wakes the others. Getting her to (quietly!) self settle is going to be quite an uphill battle but if I need to do it then so be it really…

I just couldn’t imagine a world in which most 9m - 12m babies are reliably good at self settling (maybe they are though and my experience is not common).

My eldest would never ever nap for me at home, even being rocked, walked in the buggy, patted etc it just didn’t happen. Nursery he napped like a dream, o had to pick him up unexpectedly one nap time and they were all just nicely laying on their mats, some being stormed some happy by themselves. The nursery ladies were magic

At my kids' nursery they used floormats too at age 1. My daughter when she started nursery had NEVER settled herself for a nap (had to either be breastfed to sleep or in a buggy) but at nursery they had her napping on a mat (with nursery worker patting her back right from day one. So I wouldnt worry too much about current habits because nurseries are good at getting babies into new routines and habits!

The nursery ladies were magic.
This is what I am hoping for!

@Laanet this is good to know thank you! That’s where I’m generally at with T2. Breastfed or pram… and if I can’t do either it descends into chaos. She’s just the most dramatic little thing. I’m looking forward to handing her over to someone else and paying them to deal with her.

DS was on a floor mat from when he started at 9 months. They did say they prioritised the cots for the younger one but he apparently wanted to lie down on the floor with the others so they let him do that instead. As for self settling, it’s a mixed bag I think! Lots of people sleep train around that age so those babies will be self settling. But then also many people don’t as those babies may need more help going to sleep. Nursery will have seen it all! I’m sure they won’t just give up completely on trying to get an under 1 to nap because they are being a bit noisy.

My friend feeds her now 18m old to sleep on the boob and he has never ever fallen asleep without her at home. But from 1, at nursery, apparently he just went to sleep in the cot (now a floor bed). Something magical seems to happen at nurseries!

My son never, ever self-settled with me (I used to cuddle him to sleep) but he did at nursery. As a baby they were happy to cuddle him, then as a toddler he just took himself off to a mat like the others. They are magic, really.

The honest answer - Magic!!!! Magic of the most wonderfulest kind. Neither of my kids nap at home unless cuddled and breastfed. Happened with my first and now my second. My second will happily take himself for a 2.5hour nap at nursery. At home if I even move after feeding him he is up like a meerkat!

I Work in a nursery we put them in top cot untill they stand or start pulling themselves up then they go in bottom cot they go on mats at about 14months old getting them ready for the next room, we will cuddle,rock, pat children to sleep if needed this is usually new babies as they all adjust to the routine pretty quick and go off to sleep in cot/mat. We play calming sounds or white nosie and have fairy lights on wall.

Copying their peers starts early! It's just a different environment with different expectations, and they just fit in with the others and the general naptime atmosphere.

each nursery nurse will have a different method, one nursery I worked at (I never went back after day 1 and phoned ss) held children’s eyes shut! It was horrific to watch! Lots of nursery’s push babies in a pram back and forth, some nursery nurses just have the knack.

When I worked in a nursery we would put smaller babies in cots, toddlers on mats on the floor with a sheet and blanket. Naps were always after lunch. There would be one or 2 staff sitting with them to rub or pat their back or whatever they needed to get to sleep, some self settled.

@Easternext @MaryJean87 thank you, your professional input very valuable!

They both have a short nap in the morning currently and then a big long one after lunch. They’ll be 11.5 months when they start nursery and only going until 12.30. So I only need for them to have a short half an hour at nursery really to make it through. It does sound like I probably don’t need to worry though. I’m sure my eldest napped OK at nursery and he was always fed to sleep at home. It’s amazing how little I recall about the logistics though!

we had magic nursery nurses as well! mine would never ever sleep for me but at nursery apparently dropped off like a goodun. The nursery had one way viewing areas so you could see in and yes, DC did nap!

Tiny wheeled cots for the proper babies in a dark/quiet room.
Toddlers on mats with a blanket. Lined up on the floor.
Staff doing what was required with back patting/rubbing chin etc.

They either have a quiet room with cots and draw the curtains, or they have a quiet area with mats and blankets (that's more for older babies/young toddlers.

For younger babies, our nursery would initially follow the routine set by the parent (ie put the baby for a nap in a cot at 11am, if that was the baby's usual nap time). By the time they get to being older babies, they all seem to get used to sleeping at the same time, usually after lunch.

Mine has a room with some travel cots in it for the smaller ones

and then there’s mats for the bigger children

my daughter is nearly 2 and still in the travel cot now

she’ll go to the floor bed when she moves up in a few months

The honest answer here is surely that they leave the babies cry themselves to sleep. I went to six or seven nurseries when my DC1 was a baby. I remember saying to two of the managers showing me around 'oh I don't mind waiting as that baby is crying'. One looked at me like I had two heads and said 'oh we have magic, they will go to sleep soon' and the other said straight out 'if we picked up every baby that cried, we'd be picking babies up all day'.

One nursery had a cot inside what can only be described as a walk in cupboard. I was so upset when I saw it and said 'why is there a cot in here'. The reply is 'that baby never stops crying and keeps all the other babies awake.

@Forestdweller11 The nursery had one way viewing areas so you could see in and yes, DC did nap!

Like a really cute weird zoo 😂

I worked in a private nursery. We laid a matt down with their name on and a blanket that went with it. Put in wash after each use, matt folded up and put back.

We got each child at nap time one by one and rocked them to sleep or however they got to sleep, nicest part of the job of course.

Then it was a constant musical chairs of stroking babies back to sleep, stopping the awake children from walking over the napping babies, having to pick some up and rock them back, some of course just cried the whole time but we tried our best.

Now we check each baby is breathing ever 5 mins and mark off on their chart and do that for each baby until they're all awake.

Then it was a case of waking each one after the amount of time they were meant to nap. Some were as long as they want so all good, 2 hours, some say 40 mins so we would have to wake them and usually put them to watch a laptop in the other area to chill before snack time.

@poopoopooinyourshoe may I ask what you mean by private nursery? This all sounds like a service I wouldn’t personally expect from mine (checking they’re breathing, a designated matt each) but was under the impression all nurseries were private…?

Checking there breathing? I think she is referring to sleep checks which are done every 10 mins in our nursery and every nursery is required todo them, Its added onto the app which parents can see what child has been doing throughout the day nappy changes etc.sleep check are just checking on each child they haven't pulled blanket over face that there ok. unless it's a school nursery then yes they are private.

Nursery magic that's how, buckets of it. I feel they should market their magic nursery dust I know I would have bought it!

And yes they all have there own bed packs which include a blanket sheet and then the nat they sleep on they have there ow for hygiene reasons they will be washed weekly

At ours they told me that they stay with the children if they need company and they will pat and stroke them if they need it too. They leave once the children are asleep.

I have seen them walking around with sleeping babies in a sling so I think if they really won't settle in the communal nap room they bring them out and sling them if they are still tired.

DS3 only feeds to sleep... DS2 was 2.5 when he started nusery and dropped his nap (I am sure so that he didn't have to nap there!) but DS1 is only 1.5 so I suspect will nap for a while yet. I'll be interested to see if they do get him to nap.

They don't leave them to cry. They might sit with a crying baby and see if their presence is enough soothing but they do soothe crying babies. We are in Germany though perhaps the culture is different. I have not been told that I need to wean him which I hear is a common thing to be told in the UK.