Poor sleeper going to nursery - anyone had experience of this?

[iwouldgoouttonight]

My DS is going to nursery two days a week when I go back to work in March. Although he's a brilliant sleeper at night, during the day he tends to have three or four naps, about 20-30 mins each and we really struggle to get him to sleep in his cot - I normally have to rock him and he sleep in my arms so that at least he gets some sleep and doesn't get worked up and overtired.

I wondered how this would work at nursery - obviously the staff aren't going to have time to hold him for half an hour while he sleeps but I really can't imagine him going to sleep in a cot, especially as they are in the same room that the rest of the babies are playing in so he'd easily get woken up.

I just wondered whether anyone had experience of this? DS is 4.5 months now so will be 6.5 months when he starts - maybe weaning will help him sleep more so I won't have to worry. But if he doesn't sleep well in the day he is really grumpy by the evening and difficult to get to sleep at night.

Hi there, I also worried about my ds's daytime naps when he started nursery - he's 10 months and started nursery 2 weeks ago. Normally he has to fall asleep in my arms sucking my finger to have a nap, so I was worried that he wouldn't sleep either. Turns out he's fine. They do have a cot room, and although he gets upset if they try to put him down there, he is quite happy to sit in a push chair in a quiet corner of the room and will doze off if they rock him a little. He's been managing longer sleeps at nursery than he often has at home!!

Just discuss this issue with the carers and let them know he's not a good daytime sleeper. They will have different strategies to try and will probably also have at least one quiet time during the day where he'll have much less stimulation and a chance to rest. I'm sure he'll be fine once he gets used to it. HTH

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My DD was a terrible daytime sleeper when she started nursery, and it's been a constant evolution of sleep patterns since - quite different to her sleep patterns at home! At home she would only ever sleep in the car or pushchair - would fall asleep like this, and wake up if we stopped, let alone tried to get her out of the pushchair/carseat. Meanwhile at nursery she would just fall asleep at some random time, and they'd get her into a cot - she often would fall asleep in someone's arms, and if it was the nursery owner she'd even get to stay there for the duration! She would typically only sleep for 20-40 minutes though, once a day, and by the time she was due to leave the baby room at 15 months often didn't sleep at all. Sometimes she'd fall asleep on the way home (seven minute walk). Once she was in the toddler room, she started sleeping again, sometimes two hours at a time! At home, she still would only fall asleep in pushchair or carseat, but would stay asleep when stationary, or even when removed from the carseat. After about eight or nine months in the toddler room though, she stopped sleeping - she was getting more verbal, and liked to stay up chatting with the other kids rather than going to sleep! Now she's in the next room up, and for the first five or so months in there she slept beautifully - they would have quiet time, and any child who fell asleep could sleep as long as they wanted (or as long as stated by parents!) Still would not nap 'normally' at home. Now at 2.10 she rarely sleeps at nursery, and it's a bit of a disaster if she does as it adds an hour plus to bedtime (but can't bring ourselves to tell nursery NOT to let her sleep).

Which is all a rather longwinded way of saying that a baby/child's nursery and home sleep patterns can be VERY different to each other, and even if they're terribly unconventional it needn't be a problem.

Thank you - that's reassuring. The nursery seem to be very good at doing things the way you want rather then having a strict routine, so when I go for the pre-visits I'll chat to them about it and see what they suggest. They did say that babies often act very differently at nursery to how they are at home, maybe I just need to see it to believe it!