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.)

This is an awful thing to say and just not true. And very worrying for the people on here anxious about babies starting nursery.
30 years in EY here, 16 as a manager and lots of experience.
The nurseries you describe should have been reported. No nursery I have ever been in would treat children like that.

It is true whether awful or not. Take a look at the full documentary on YouTube. It’s called RTE investigates crèches: Behind Closed Doors. It wasn’t one creche or two - it was a number of them and parents paid 1500-2K a month for them to care for their children.
I think, after watching it, you will agree that these things should be talked out openly. It is the only way to try and prevent it happening.

Do you think the documentary may have swayed your opinion and made you anxious? Not all nurseries just leave babies to cry themselves to sleep at nap time. I mean, there’s enough nursery workers on this thread proving that isn’t true. I concede that you are right that awareness needs to exist that potentially some nurseries are a pile of crap and parents should be cautious, but it’s not relevant to this thread as I know the nursery in question and they definitely don’t just neglect the children in cupboards.

I can see why @wildthingsinthenight is questioning whether what you say is true when you’ve had the misfortune of visiting so many neglectful nurseries. Unless you live in a particularly shitty area, that does seem unlikely.

Aren’t nurseries ofsted registered anyway??

My visits to nurseries were before this was aired.

Yes they are supposed to meet standards. I don’t know how they get away with it but they do. There were court cases following it but they are still open. And a follow up in 2019 showed it was still happening.

Just watch the documentary. RTE investigates crèches. Behind closed doors. It tells everything people need to know in an objective manner. It is so important that people are aware and can choose a care setting for young AND old people keeping certain things in mind.

I won’t link as it’s harrowing and people need to decide for themselves whether to watch it instead of pressing on a link absentmindedly.

I wouldn’t pay much attention to a documentary in Ireland. It doesn’t have the best track record for childrens welfare or compassion. They didn’t shut the last Magdelene Laundry until the mid 1990’s. It’s hardly a benchmark of good practice. They will cheerfully starve a child to death and at the same time demonise abortion. Absolutely batshit place.

I viewed a fair few nurseries, one of my close friends is a nursery manager so I knew what to look for. Some of the OFSTED outstanding ones had too many very young staff and looked far too stretched, others were rated Good but had a much better feel. The one we use is independent and quite small but has 2 sites. The staff are so caring, and I love how accommodating they are to the children. I’m sure it’s not perfect but I drop in unexpectedly quite often and you can see in to all the rooms and I have never seen a child left to cry. If anything I think they are a bit soft (my DD going through a challenging phase) but I’m fine with that.

We have a sleep room attached to our baby room there is no door just an arch between both rooms, we are allowed to go through the arch into baby room but absolutely not leave baby room. We very occasionally go back in baby room todo a quick tidy round then sit back in sleep room usually planning weeks activities etc, we sleep check every 10mins even tho we are sat right next to the babies we check each one is in safe position not to hot/cold breathing ok.

Ave not read the story behind that nursery but I do believe alot more went wrong than the baby being in a sleep room the staff weren't qualified for 1.

Baconand Bit of a generalisation but you aren’t wrong about the laundries.

Progress has been made and I think it’s gone to the other end of the scale now where everything is scrutinised and it’s become a nanny state.

Abortion is legal and was voted by a majority in a referendum so you aren’t correct about that.

I was concerned enough at the time to read first hand experiences of employees in nurseries. Mostly young girls, level 5 awarded academically. Eye watering stories about how the children’s daily diaries are mostly fabricated and filled in randomly throughout the day,

Of course we all hope the care settings we send our children to will be/are different but there was/is cause for concern.

I say this as someone who paid a ‘sleep consultant’ a hefty amount of money to do what amounted to nothing less than controlled crying with my DC2 so I wasn’t against leaving a baby to self settle even if that’s crying itself to sleep. I wouldn’t do it now but mentally I was in a bad place after DC2.

Dreading the nap situation at nursery for my 1 year old. He starts next week, only 1 day a week. He's totally reliant on me to nap and breast feeding. Believe me when I say I've tried so many other things that don't work. Saying that, my mum looked after him when I did a kit day at work and he napped in the pram! He's also such a light sleeper which I worry about and woken by any noise.

With magic powers can be the only explanation. My son hardly naps at home but nursery he naps every day!

Try actually getting an abortion in Ireland though. The law is one thing, practice is another.

First nursery they went out in the fresh air under the pram shed roof in huge coach built prams. They looked like little cocoons waiting to hatch.

second nursery they had mats on the floor, lights dimmed, blinds drawn…. Zzzz. All fine until she didn’t need an afternoon nap any more, their solution was to put out her mat, draw the blinds, dim the lights and give her a book to look at. At which point due to conditioning she promptly fell asleep, no doubt helped by the fact that the previous days nap had given her the energy to stay awake until 9.30 the night before.

It was a battle with the nursery manager, and I lost.

Try actually getting an abortion in Ireland though. The law is one thing, practice is another

I don’t have personal experience. Do you?

Yes I do.

Not me having the abortions but I have provided accommodation for 2 Irish women who had to come here. Not explaining specifics for their sakes - but via my ex's family who are Irish. It's a ridiculous set up that causes abject misery.

that is terrible. Were they from Northern Ireland though? There are a lot of agencies in ROI to aid women. NI is another story completely with different laws.

Anyway better get back to the thread as I think we are going off point.

ROI. There is still a steady stream coming here. Not that much has changed!
But agree this is off topic.

Good luck! This thread has given me confidence that all will be grand. Eldest definitely used to nap at childcare and with grandparents when I went back to work… just for the life of me can’t think how! (He was fed to sleep with me.)

@Chasedbythechaser @Baconand we like off topic - always good to see how life is for others even if it’s a tangent to the conversation! Thanks for both your input on the nursery front, might cautiously check out that documentary. Luckily I’m quite confident in the nursery they’ll be going to (as DS1 has been there 2.5 years and he loves it!)

When my daughter started at the age of one, we had always co-slept and BF to sleep and she'd never gone in a cot. In her nursery they have a separate room with cots, she bloody self-soothed and went to sleep! They are magic. When she moved up a room they had mats on the floor and she just put herself down.

Mine started at 8 months and was pushed to sleep in a buggy- which is the only way he could get to sleep at home too. They tried everything to get him to nap & I agreed with this method as nothing else worked there or at home.

By the time he moved to the toddler room he was better at napping & happily slept on a mat on the floor.

My nursery did what was best for each child and got them to nap in the way they needed- I'm sure yours will be the same too

With sorcery, OP. Sorcery.

It varies widely so what another nursery does may not be relevant for you. The only nurseries I have personal knowledge of either put the child in a cot and left them to sleep, crying if need be, or put them in a buggy and jiggled them around, crying if need be.

This is pretty close to my experience with my eldest (we changed nurseries, God knows what the first one did, they were horrendous) but his current nursery he was almost 2, they dimmed the lights, each nursery nurse took 2 kids each into nap area, each had their own mat and.blankie, they had lullabies playing and as he was very chatty he was able to tell me he put his head on her shoulder and she petted his back until he was asleep. He was always a hard kid to get to sleel, he's 5 next month and still needs a strong bedtime routine and someone with him but they facilitates it and never complained about it. He's been so happy there.

My almost 18 month old daughter is a more independent girl and easier to soothe anyway but initially they cuddled her and walked with her until she was asleep then lay her down and now apparently she goes and gets her blankie from her basket and takes herself to the cosy mats and just hangs out until she falls asleep as she naps a little earlier than their designated naptime.

Both mine were fed to sleep from birth but they found their own way with others. My daughter now will feed to sleep half the time and the other half ask for daddy cuggles while I put eldest to bed and he dances to some songs they both like and she goes to sleep on his shoulder and into the cot.

DS was a shit sleeper at home and a shit sleeper at nursery, but he did at least lie down quietly for them and close his eyes (with me he was running about refusing to lie down).

Went to a couple of different nurseries (we moved house twice) - in the first he was still little so they had cots, in the second they had little camp beds with a blanket. In the last nursery they all chose a blanket and lay down on foam mats. The “magic” was just that is was part of nursery routine immediately after lunch so they were all expecting it, and all the children did it together, so there was peer pressure to lay down quietly and close your eyes.

Its a magic trick

I cant explain it

But it just works