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.)

I’d love to know. Mine never naps at home, but will happily nap on a mat at nursery.

I can assure you no nursery I've ever worked in has left babies to cry!

We cuddle/pat/stroke as needed and yes, we are magic and can get them to sleep very easily. It's a knack you develop over the years.

In the baby room of our nursery, they had multiple methods of getting baby to sleep. They had the cots and mats, which my little one was fine with, they have fluffy, clean dogs beds, they had swinging hammock chairs literally inches from the floor, they had prams. When I said do as you like, at home she goes in a cot in dark room, they said great, we'll try the same. But if not, we're happy to push her, rock her, stroke her, whatever you want us to try. As it was, she was fine the same as home, though she gave up naps a bit quicker there.

DS started at 9 months and until then would only ever breastfeed to sleep or rocked in a pram.

He battled them for a couple of days, but they got him down initially in a rocking chair thing and he was in a cot by the end of the week.

They are honestly magicians.

One said that in her experience, babies tend to either go on a milk strike, a food strike or a sleep strike when they first start at nursery, but it never lasts more than a couple of days.

i have twins the exact same. They re two now and one will only nap for me if in the buggy being pushed.

At nursery, however, they both go down instantly every day. I swear they use magic.

don’t sweat it at all;they’ll have them down in no time.

My second dd is due to start nursery soon (she’ll be 9 months) and this makes me so anxious and sad 😔

I don’t remember how they got her (tricky) big sister to sleep. I do remember a room of cots but I don’t remember even asking how they got the babies down- they just seemed to magically manage it! I think she went on food strike for a few days though as a PP has mentioned.

It totally depends on the nursery. Some nurseries I’ve worked in are very understaffed over staff lunchtimes, so they keep all the babies up so they’ll sleep after dinner and can have less staff with them. So they lay them all out on floor mats and pat/stroke till they fall asleep. Others are not so understaffed and lay babies down as they seem tired etc. So dependent on the nursery really.

Push chairs and cots at ours. Nursery workers are nap miracle workers. When DS started I was really worried, as he napped in his cot in silence in pitch black at home and had never had a nap in his pushchair or the car (not for the want of trying!) and hated background noise. He slept in a pushchair at nursery without any fuss!

Where I worked we had a mixture of children who would plonk themselves on their sleep mat and drift off with no help.

We had some who needed touch, I used to sit down and rub their backs. Some would have comforters from home and be fine. Some would require more of a cuddle, especially if new to the setting.

We never let any of them cry!

We had one who liked to hold your pinky finger. 🥹

I used to look after one little boy who was 2, who used to take his sock off and suck on it to fall asleep 😂 it did make me laugh. His mum said if he was barefoot before bedtime at home they had to find him some clean socks!

Ours offer a choice of cot, push chair and I think there was one other. I basically said just do whatever as long as she has a sleep (she co-sleeps and contact naps so not really an option for a full nap at nursery). They tend to cuddle her after her milk for a sleep and then put her down somewhere. She wakes earlier than usual but tends to have two naps at nursery where she has one at home. I've just let them come up with their own system whilst I have mine at home. It seems to work well and my girl doesn't get confused between the two.

I love their quirky litte habits!

We also had the tricksters, the ones where you could bet your life they were asleep only to try and love and boom, AWAKE. 😄

Oh yes. The ones who can hear you trying to creep away from them!

I love that the general consensus is magic!

The idea of my kids crying a bit doesn’t make me recoil in horror. My eldest has been at the nursery for 2.5 years and in all the pick ups I’ve never heard or seen any distressed children. But I don’t think leaving them for a few minutes to cry is the end of the world, they’re twins after all, they’re used to it!

The sock thing is interesting (and hilarious!) Dramatic nap-fighter twin won’t suck her thumb, a dummy or take a comforter. But she often takes her socks off during the day and plays with them, carries them round the house… I might genuinely give her a sock at nap time tomorrow to see what she thinks!

That last part makes me so sad, I couldn't leave my baby in a place like that

@Chasedbythechaser This would not happen in our nursery not a chance, yes babies cry but we always comfort them and would never put one alone separate from everyone else they would simply just play with quiet toys if they didn't sleep.

Sadly it is far more common. There was an investigation carried out in Ireland into crèches - most of them charged upwards of 1500 a month. Some were what were considered quite exclusive crèches in very wealthy areas. It’s called RTE investigates crèches. Behind closed doors. It was a BAFTA nominated programme.

The journalists went into nurseries undercover as employees in 2013 and some the same nurseries were looked at again in 2019 and nothing had changed. It’s on YouTube but it is very hard viewing.

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).

Is it so unbelievable? Both mine were self settling well before 9m. DS slept 9:30-11 and 2-3:30 at that age, Dd was a one nap monster around 12:30-2. Both just knew it was nap time and went off. I have only ever left DS to cry once aged about 8 weeks for 5 minutes.

I wouldn’t use anywhere with a sleeping room personally. They didn’t give me good vibes and that’s where the recent baby death was.
Ours uses floor mats for all ages in the nursery room. I didn’t worry about the how, I did what worked for me at home (BF to sleep) and they did shush pat and cuddles. The transition was fine, they adapt to each place and our nursery tailored it for each child so I really wouldn’t worry about it. No need to change what you do now.

When DS was in the baby room (he started at nine months) the babies slept outside in big, old fashioned prams. It was a covered area so it didn’t matter if it rained.

I didn’t think he’d sleep when he went up to the toddler room and he had a mat on the floor but he sleeps like a little angel. Not so much at home!

I like the sleeping room in our nursery, it's cosy and means that the sleeping ones aren't disturbed by the ones that aren't napping.

If there's no separate room then does that mean all the babies have to nap at once? That doesn't seem ideal to me, I wouldn't want my baby forced onto a schedule.

The stories of babies dying in nurseries do make your blood run cold but realistically cot death and accidents happen everywhere. It should absolutely be investigated when it happens but we can't torture ourselves with the what ifs. Spend time in the nurseries you're considering, talk to the staff and get a feel for how they are with the kids. Gut instinct will tell you much more than any inspection or ofsted score.

None of my three children have been self settling by 9m so it seems unusual to me too - but I think all families are different.

At our nursery they all sleep at different times as needed but learn to sleep with others playing around them and noise. If there’s a number sleeping they will dim the room slightly and do quieter activities with the others but there’s no set schedule although over time in the room they find they do start to fall in to more of a group pattern which can be entirely different to home. My DD was a dreadful napper at home but at nursery she would see the others lie down on a mat and join them. It’s very child led which I much prefer.

I’m not sure what your intention is by telling me that both your kids “just knew it was nap time and went off”. Do you really really think this is typical? When you consider how many threads about baby sleep are posted here every day? When how many “bAbY sLeEp ExPeRtS” pop up on social media every day?

Why would you even click on a thread that asked how nurseries got babies to sleep if you thought the answer was “they put them in a cot and walk away and the baby merrily drifts off to sleep without making a sound”?

I really dislike mums who seem to go out of their way to make others feel like failures. Don’t be so sanctimonious.

I am sorry I didn't mean to be sanctimonious. I just do object to broad statements such as " I don't believe 9m old self settle" it's just not the case.

You know full well I didn’t make a sweeping statement. The words “most” and “reliably” suggest that, alongside the entire parenthesis which shows my lack of conviction, plus the acknowledgment that I was only speaking from my experience. I know 9 month olds can self settle: note the bit where I say one of my twins pretty much does.

I’m not going to let this descend into mumsnet mud slinging, but I’m going to call you out on it. When mums come along and make statements similar to the one you did, it can almost feel as though you’re saying “my babies are GOOD babies and your babies are BAD babies”. It’s got the real potential to make women around you feel like shit, so I urge you to please be aware of it and not say similar things to friends who might be struggling with getting their babies to nap.

(And of course it also translates to other things: “my baby never cries at nursery drop off”, “my toddler doesn’t tantrum”, “my toddler always eats their vegetables”, “my preschooler never has accidents in their pants”, “my preschooler can count to 2000”……)