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Nurseries

Find nursery advice from other Mumsnetters on our Nursery forum. For more guidance on early years development, sign up for Mumsnet Ages & Stages emails.

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Original poster

No sleep at nursery

27 replies

LovelyTrees · 18/09/2015 22:03

What, if anything, should I be asking nursery to do with regard to our 13mo DD lack of sleep. She is in nursery from 8.30am to 6pm and often when I go to pick her they tell me she's only slept 30minutes or 35minutes during that entire time. She wont sleep on the journey home either so she's then an absolute zombie or a screaming wreck by bedtime. I really thought the nursery would do more to get her napping longer during the day but they don't seem that fussed. Any suggestions of what I can ask them to do?

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Snossidge · 18/09/2015 22:33

How does she sleep at home?

Original poster

LovelyTrees · 19/09/2015 11:53

Hi Snos she sleeps pretty well at home, usually an hour from 11-12 and another hr from 3-4. But i do usually take her out in the buggy to get her to sleep as she's not a big fan of her cot! Nursery use a bouncy chair to get her to sleep

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Snossidge · 19/09/2015 12:26

Sounds like you need to teach her to self-settle then, so she can fall asleep and stay asleep easier at nursery.

ThighsofThunder · 19/09/2015 12:42

They put a 13 month old in a bouncy chair?!

NickNacks · 19/09/2015 12:53

Gosh i think you need to do more before expecting the nursery to sort out your child's sleep problems.

Original poster

LovelyTrees · 19/09/2015 13:00

Yes Thighs, not ideal is it?

Snos I have been trying for months but she's still very dependent on being "helped" to sleep and I am not prepared to let her cry it out

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Original poster

LovelyTrees · 19/09/2015 13:01

Ok NickNacks what do you think I should try?

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VeryPunny · 19/09/2015 13:01

How long has she been at nursery? Sleep is often the last thing that clicks. How are the nursery helping her to sleep? Are all the other kids in the room having naps at the same time? Our baby room has a separate sleeping room with cots and mattresses, staff pat or rock babies that need it to sleep. In rooms of older children they all nap together after lunch, but again staff pat or rock as necessary.

I'd expect any nursery worth their salt to do an awful lot to help your DD to nap.

Original poster

LovelyTrees · 19/09/2015 13:05

Very she has been at nursery since 1st Sept so still settling in really. Lack of sleep is not helping her enjoy it as much as she could though and when I collect her she is so obviously exhausted

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Original poster

LovelyTrees · 19/09/2015 13:07

Shiuld have added that DD is in the baby room (will be until 18mths) and they do have a separate sleeping room although I often see cots and sleeping mats in the main room too.

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SirChenjin · 19/09/2015 13:09

The nursery can only do so much. I would be cut the out the buggy walks to get her to sleep twice a day and focus on replicating the nursery routine of one nap after lunch where she isn't walked to sleep. .

VeryPunny · 19/09/2015 13:14

It took DD about 2-3 months before she really cracked naps at nursery. Also the babies would often go for walks in buggies - for the first few weeks this was how new starters got to nap. Once they were more settled at nursery then the staff would transfer to cots.

I also wouldn't worry about changing your napping routine at home - my DC have been happy to have different routines for sleep at home and at Nursery.

Original poster

LovelyTrees · 19/09/2015 13:19

Thanks SirChenjin. I'm willing to try one nap a day but I thought she was only meant to be awake 4ish hrs at a time at this age. If she wakes at 7 she starts to get tired by 11am and really tired by 11.30 which is nursery lunch time so then she refuses her lunch too! I'd much prefer if she could have morning nap as well as an afternoon one. Am i just asking too much?

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WorldsBiggestGrotbag · 19/09/2015 13:19

The problem is the nursery won't have time/resource to take her out twice a day for an hour. My best friend had a baby who would only nap in her pram but put a lot of work into getting her to self settle in her cot before she started nursery.
We used the pick up/put down method to get DD self settling in her cot at about 12 months.
You said you thought the nursery would do more. What would you like them to do?

WorldsBiggestGrotbag · 19/09/2015 13:20

Oh and DD dropped to one nap a day at 13 months.

Snossidge · 19/09/2015 13:24

I think you either need to get her falling asleep and staying asleep at home, or accept she's not going to get much sleep at nursery. You don't want to have her cry to sleep train but presumably she's crying a lot with exhaustion too?

SirChenjin · 19/09/2015 13:26

I think that you might be expecting too much, yes. They will probably have lunch around 12, so napping around 12.30/1. That's doable for a 13 month old but it would be easier for her if there was consistency across the week

Snossidge · 19/09/2015 13:27

One of mine was only on 1 nap at 13 months, one had two naps for a bit longer than that and my 18 month old is only just having only one nap on some days - so there's a lot of variation.

CurlsLDN · 19/09/2015 13:33

I think it's fairly normal for a 13 month old to drop to one nap a day? Of course many take longer, but I've not heard this 4 hour rule?

My ds started nursery at 12 months, and at the time was consistently having 2 naps a day, totalling around 3 hours. Nursery absolutely respected my wish for him to still be put down at 11 and 3, but he would often only sleep for 20 mins at a time and would miss/be late for meals and so on.
I discussed it with the staff after 6 weeks or so, and their feeling was that he could easily stay awake longer in the morning as he was so happily busy at nursery. We agreed to try one nap, he initially only slept about half an hour but soon settled in for one 1.5 hr nap each day

Original poster

LovelyTrees · 19/09/2015 13:33

Ideally I'd like them tontry getting her to sleep more than once a day. They take babies much younger who presumably have more than one nap per day and they have a separate room for sleeping so it seems feasible to me. But I understand they have limited time/resources and obviously my DD is just one of many children they have to deal with. I just don't know what's "normal" or expected but so far I feel a bit disappointed that they just seem to let her get so tired. I do hope things improve. Its hard enough being back at work without worrying about DD becoming a zombie baby too

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Original poster

LovelyTrees · 19/09/2015 13:36

Curls I hope my DD can do as your DS as that sounds much more manageable

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CurlsLDN · 19/09/2015 13:38

So to answer your question, nursery should be able to advise you on how your little one is coping with staying awake longer, and decide with you whether to keep trying for two naps or go for one.

For what it's worth ds was a monster upon coming home for a good couple of months - always have a big snack ready, eg a banana in the buggy on the way home, and allow them to chill out with cuddles and stories / cartoons when they get home.
All the threads on here at the moment about school starters being knackered at the end of the day, it's just the same for toddlers new to nursery, regardless of naps!

KP86 · 22/09/2015 20:27

I can probably help with this.

DS started Childcare, two days per week (in Australia) from about 10 months. He had a very strict sleep routine at home (due to us going to a residential sleep school at 4 months - best thing ever!), where he was allowed to grizzle for a short while before he would self settle and sleep and the room was completely blacked out. Childcare was completely different. Babies were put to sleep based on their personal routines, but most of the time the carers rocked or patted them and then put down. Otherwise if they cried while in the cots they might wake other children. It was also not overly dark because of rules about needing to be able to see in and out at all times.

DS has always woken between sleep cycles, and puts himself back to sleep very easily after a 5-10 second mini-cry. But, I think while he was at care he was either attended to very quickly, or because it was light could see the other kids and so didn't want to be asleep anymore. So consequently, he was having between 10 and 45 minutes sleep all day instead of the 2 X 90min on a normal day at home. The poor kid would be so tired at the end of the day half the time he would fall asleep on the way home. We would quickly try to feed (he did get a late snack there at around 5-5:30pm, so didn't need a full dinner), bath and straight to bed.

As others have said, after a while he did improve, but it was never great. On his best days he might have had 1.5hr, but that was rare. I think it's just one of those things about Childcare, especially for kids who haven't been there since they were really young so learned to sleep in that environment.

At the end of the day, he wasn't suffering overly from it, he was kept busy at care so not getting too cranky there and we just changed our routine a bit at home to suit.

At the centre, you can ask them to keep trying to put your daughter down more often and see if she gets used to sleeping in the cot. I think you should do that at home as well. Depending on how many days per week she is there is how much it would worry me.

Also, in response to others, sleep needs of children differ a lot! DS is now 17 months and we have only dropped his second sleep (was still 2 X 90 mins) this past few weeks. He now has 1 X 2hr after lunch.

nutmegandginger · 29/09/2015 17:09

Following this with interest. My DD has just started nursery 2 days a week (10 months) and she is loving it, but hardly sleeping at all (35 min a day at best). She is a very enthusiastic and distractible personality, and if there's anything remotely interesting going on she will try her best to forget she's tired and want to keep going. At home she goes to sleep in a dark room, so it's a big leap to suddenly expect her to go to sleep in a light room filled with exciting new people and other babies (who are probably not sleeping themselves as most of them are new and still settling).

They asked us about her nap routine when we started (at home she's still on 2 naps per day), but there isn't a separate sleeping room at our nursery (they just put mats out on the floor) and so realistically she's going to have to fit into their routine as there's no way she's going to go to sleep when the other babies aren't. Like the previous poster said, it seems that when she wakes up a bit, she sees that she is in an exciting environment and immediately wants to get up and play, whereas at home she'd let herself drift off again.

On the other hand, the nursery staff said that it's very normal for sleep to take a while to get sorted, and reassured me that one of the babies who's been there a few months now used only to sleep 10 min a day, but they now have to wake him up so he doesn't stay asleep all afternoon.

Original poster

LovelyTrees · 01/10/2015 21:24

Thanks for all the advice and tips! Some days seem better than others. Today she only slept 35mins the entire day but on other days they've managed to get her down for closer to 45mins at lunchtime and another 20mins at about 3pm. At home she is sleeping up to 3hrs though (90min in the cot and another 90 while I'm out and about) so it seems she's exhausted from the nursery days still. But hopefully she'll improve over the coming weeks

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