How will they get her to sleep?

[Marahute]

Obviously I will be chatting with the nursery about this, but it's making me anxious right now so I am posting in the hope of hearing some positive experiences...

DD will be starting a lovely nursery in Feb. Not too long after she turns one.

My only concern about it is naps! Although DD sleeps in the cot at night (we sleep trained her recently) she still contact naps during the day. So either nursed to sleep and then cuddled, or put in the baby carrier and rocked / patted to sleep. She'll also nap in the car if she's tired. She's napped in a pushchair a couple of times only. We did try sleep training for naps, but honestly it was too much, she and I were both happier when we stopped.

So that's fine at home but I am fretting about nursery and how she'll sleep there. My son slept in a pushchair at his childminder (eventually moved into a cot), but he had a dummy and had been happily napping his cot for a while before he started childcare. DD is a different kettle of fish and won't take a dummy.

Has anyone got experience of sending a contact napper to nursery? Did they have magic methods of getting them to sleep? Wondering if I should invest time getting her to nap in the cot, but honestly I just want to enjoy the last of my maternity leave and enjoy cuddling her!

Well it's amazing but she'll probably do what the other kids do.
The nursery will have loads of experience of different types of methods to get her to sleep. Treat it as a good way of breaking that habit.

They either will get her to nap or they won’t 😂. If they don’t then they have an over tired toddler to look after. ...
she’s do things differently at nursery anyway so she’s likely to go lie down when the others do. This is a normal thing for them to deal with and children soon work out rules are different in different places .

I know I’m talking from vs a point of BTDTGTS but trust nursery to look after her ( assuming you do trust them). They won’t be the same as you but that’s ok. She still spends far more time at home than at nursery after all.

I had more of a nap refuser than a contact napper- but she was very clingy and would only sleep with me at that age (and still would!) She was in nursery at 6 months and was a nap/sleep refuser there as well but she was happy and the staff gave her loads of cuddles and she did nap every now and then. The nursery did say most kids do nap well at nursery even if they dont at home - its a different routine there and most just go with the flow. For my DD she had quiet time and cuddles instead-but she has never neeed much sleep and that worked for us. Leave it to the experts!

Thanks ladies. This is all reassuring!
I absolutely trust the nursery, they're great and we know all the staff because it's part of my older DC's preschool, some of the staff take care of him at his wrap around care. They all seem fab, passionate about the kids and just a lovely bunch of people.
I think I am generally feeling a bit about my last baby starting nursery too, which is probably causing me to overthink it a bit. I mean she'll survive even if she doesn't nap after all.

I know loads of kids that don't nap at home but happily go to sleep at nursery on the floor with a blanket I wouldn't worry about it, the staff are amazing at getting all the kids to nap at once and they'll be used to difficult nappers

My 3 have always napped on me / in the buggy / being BF to sleep. And, let’s not kid ourselves, lots of co-sleeping too.

Unless they were at nursery. I don’t know what voodoo magic they use but it’s incredible!

Nursery has some kind of magic sleep dust. DD1 would only nap when being pushed in the buggy and coslept on a night time. For the first couple of weeks they rocked her in her pushchair and then they got her to sleep in a cot! A miracle, she never slept in a cot at home.

I sent a contact napper to nursery. Heaven knows what magic they do but she goes to sleep there wherever! They did cuddle her to sleep for a couple of months

I haven't read all the replies but just wanted to quickly say that I was in your exact position about 12m ago. DS would only nap in the daytime if he was in the car, pushchair, or attached time my boob. I toyed with the idea of trying to get him straight into the cot for daytime naps as the end of my maternity leave approached, but when push came to shove I just couldn't bring myself to do it, as I enjoyed those contact naps just as much as DS did!

As it turned out, the staff at his nursery are miracle workers. He has there every day from the very beginning: two naps a day for the first few months, then dropping to one several months ago (this was done with our full agreement; and at no point did we feel that nursery were trying to push for dropping to the second nap before he was ready).

Apparently they cuddled him and rocked him to sleep at first, then progressed to lying him down on a mattress and patting his back. Apparently now they just pop him down with the others - no extra support required - and he sleeps for anywhere between 60 and 120 mins. I still can't really understand how they do it!

Of course all babies (and all nurseries) are different and nobody knows how your situation will pan out. But I hope I've managed to give some reassurance that (a) it might be absolutely fine and (b) it's OK to enjoy those lovely snuggles while you can without feeling as if you ought to be doing some kind of training.

Hope it all goes brilliantly!

Attached *to my boob

My DD was a contact napper (still is age 2!) and it took a couple of weeks but nursery got her to nap by herself. They cuddled her and rocked her initially then started putting her down drowsy. Few bad days but she was still napping twice a day initially (9 months) so got used to it quickly. Now she just takes herself off to the sleep room and goes to sleep, she would never do that at home!

Thank you so much for these stories, they really are heartening to read.

We are magicians 😄. Don't worry, we have many children who don't nap/eat etc at home but do at nursery.

My daughter (9 months) often resists her afternoon nap and completely skipped it on both Saturday and Sunday (she was fine - she just wasn’t interested in sleeping). Yesterday was her first day in nursery (other than settling-in sessions). She napped 1hr20 in the morning and 1hr30 in the afternoon. I don’t know how they do it but I truly believe they have some kind of magic!

Definitely magic involved. My DD only ever napped on someone at home, with music on, a dark room, and the planets aligned in just the right way (same is true long after she started nursery), but would happily just go to sleep on one of the mattresses in nursery. Apparently she occasionally needed her cheek strokes to settle her.

She doesn't nap anymore now she's a bit older, but there's a long list of things she does in nursery that she absolutely loses her shit about if we suggest she does them at home - eating things other than Cheerios, having her hair up, using the toilet...

I've cared for lots of children whose parents didn't think we would be able to get them to nap. They all do! We find a way. Some need more comfort than others and some take a while to settle but they get there in the end.

When my own DD started nursery she had always been bf to sleep. I thought she just wouldn't sleep at all at nursery but the little monkey just laid on a mat in the sleep room with all the others and went off to sleep with a staff member stroking her hair! Never did that for me!

I videoed a child going down for their nap once, because his parents didn't believe me. They were gobsmacked, because he gave them so much grief at home.

Try not to worry.

Dd1 was cuddled to sleep at her first nursery (10-14 months) and then pushed back and forth in a buggy in her second for the first few weeks, then they magicked her into a cot. No idea how!

Dd was a nap refuser at home. Nursery assured us that they all sleep for them, about a month in they declared that she just doesn't sleep, which indeed she never had. The difference was that she was fine with no sleep. I think if your dd needs sleep she will adapt and sleep. At nursery feeding to sleep just isn't an option so after a while she will find other ways.

trust them, i dont know what on earth they do but mine are saints in nursery. at home its another story! lol. im sure i pick up the wrong kids

anyhow, they will get kids to sleep,kids seem to just adapt to the room and surroundings better than we give them credit for.

I remember this with mine and wondering how it would ever work! Somehow it does. They do anything your child needs.

Nursery staff will be very experienced at sleep training and there isn't the emotional involvement either way (baby isn't so bothered about the attention of staff, staff aren't so bothered by the baby's cries).

Yep, we are magic
Honestly, they're so different at nursery to at home.
We have one baby who is an absolute nap refuser at home, but with us we pop her in a cot, tell her it's bedtime and she settles herself to sleep. We recorded it for her mum as she didn't believe us.

Another would only sleep on someone, came to us and started sleeping in a cosy bed on his own (for cosy bed read dog bed they're much comfier than a mat on the floor!)

Thanks all.

I had to leave her (unexpectedly) with my parents all day yesterday and she napped for an hour on my dad. Only an hour all day, but still she napped without me, so gives me some hope!