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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

Baby barely sleeping at nursery

18 replies

RosieLee2019 · 22/12/2021 14:35

My 12 month DS started nursery a few weeks ago and has settled well BUT he hardly gets any sleep there. He goes three days a week, and he has a lunchtime nap there but this can be as little as 40 mins and max 1hr 20. He is there for 9 hours and is completely shattered by the time I pick him up, and then sleeps badly at night cos he’s overtired. On days when he’s at home he gets 2-3 hours’ sleep over 1 or 2 naps.

I’ve asked nursery to try and make sure he gets more sleep but I guess there’s only so much they can do to try and enable this. Or should I be more forceful about it?

I am just worried about how tired he is getting. Should I just accept it, or is there anything I could ask of nursery to try and address it?

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SleepingStandingUp · 22/12/2021 14:37

How often are they trying him? Is he walking up himself?

Original poster

RosieLee2019 · 22/12/2021 14:45

They tend to work around a one-nap schedule, so a nap post-lunch. Yes he is waking up himself. I’ve asked them to try and resettle him if he wakes up after only 40 mins, but clearly this is not happening :/

OP posts:

OnlyFoolsnMothers · 22/12/2021 14:46

Doubt there’s much you can do OP- if he wakes he wakes

Dspx · 22/12/2021 14:47

At 12 months the nursery should be working on your routine. What time does he nap at home ? You need to ask them to follow that x

NellieBertram · 22/12/2021 14:47

They can try briefly to resettle him but if he cries he will wake the other babies.

He may start sleeping better as he gets older but generally you have to accept it’s not the same as home.

OnceuponaRainbow18 · 22/12/2021 14:49

I’m not sure being forceful would be helpful; they are probably trying to resettle baby but it’s hard.

CloseYourMouthLynn · 22/12/2021 14:50

My daughter was like this when she started nursery. It takes them awhile to settle into a routine there and get used to the sleeping environment. After a couple of months they settle into it and will catch up on sleep at home. It's when they also stop napping at home that's hard!

CloseYourMouthLynn · 22/12/2021 14:51

Does he have comforters from home to help? I gave them one of her sleeping bags so it was like. nap at home.

OnlyFoolsnMothers · 22/12/2021 14:53

@Dspx

At 12 months the nursery should be working on your routine. What time does he nap at home ? You need to ask them to follow that x

To be fair lots of nurseries have one nap time- we could ask them to wake up our little one earlier or keep her awake but she couldn’t go to sleep whenever we dictated. It’s usually nap time after lunch.

Original poster

RosieLee2019 · 22/12/2021 14:59

Thanks all, really helpful.

@Dspx at home he either has 2 naps or 1 long one (2 hours). I thought about asking them to try 2 naps, but the trouble is, I know he wouldn’t sleep at nursery when there are activities and distractions going on, so I don’t think it’d work

@CloseYourMouthLynn no unfortunately he’s not really attached to anything like that (we’ve tried!) although maybe trying him in a sleeping bag might help. Will try that.

Otherwise, I’ll just keep hoping his lunchtime nap gets longer!

OP posts:

Lockdownmummy · 22/12/2021 15:02

Assuming at home 2 naps is one in the morning and one in the afternoon. Are nursery offering him a nap in the morning if he is tired? What are the age of the youngest children in the nursery? 12 months and younger I would expect them to be having two naps and they must be able to accommodate it.

Pretty sure my DS went through a phase of not napping at the same time as any of the other children in his room - morning and then a later afternoon one. Now he's dropped to one nap it's after lunch.

oKoK65 · 23/12/2021 06:07

They don't tend to sleep as much at nursery. Too much distractions and nursery's tend to do one nap after lunch. He should get use to the routine and yes you could ask nursery to try to support in him napping longer but obviously they have lots of children so may not be feasible. If it's really not working for you you could look for a childminder,?

Tumbleweed101 · 24/12/2021 08:31

We work as closely to the home schedule as possible. Some of the babies in our care can have as many as three naps if they are in a full day and still little. Some babies take a little while to get used to the more noisy environment or possibly they have more to process after having lots of new things to explore and do so don’t sleep so well. Keep talking to your nursery to see what times they are trying. It can be tricky resettling a baby in a room full of other sleeping babies if they wake up crying.

FTEngineerM · 26/12/2021 22:57

Or should I be more forceful about it?

😂 sorry, this bit made me laugh, what are you going to do? Go there every scheduled nap time and ‘put him down’ yourself?

That’s unlikely so.. they have at least 2 other babies each at that age bracket to care for and get down for a nap. Unless your child can be put down and just go to sleep it’s unlikely they’ll follow your routine been there with DS1.

If your child gets fomo, like our first, then it’s not so easy. Imagine that nursery worker has to look after 3 with fomo.. at the same time. Grim.

Anyway, our second loved independent sleep from the second he was born. I can’t cuddle him to sleep he gets stressed and just cries, put him down and he’s gone within minutes.

Ultimately we can’t control how they are, we just have to get by. If he’s tired after one nap at nursery, he’ll live, it’ll be fine. Can you remove him from that particular nursery if it’s affecting your life that much? Do you have others near by?

niclw · 28/12/2021 00:19

My DS's nursery allowed him to sleep at whatever time needed at 12 months. The only issue was when lunch coincided with a nap. If I were you I would push for them to follow your instructions.

Be warned though that from the age of two they are likely to assume that children only need one nap after lunch (around 1pm) or not at all. My son is now in a room for 3 years + and they are expecting children not to have naps. However my son still does. At home he will nap in the morning after a trip out to a shop or a walk but they do not like this so try to get him to stay awake until 1pm still. He regularly falls asleep in his lunch as some days he can't handle being awake any longer. He is beginning to cut out naps on some days but the nursery are strongly encouraging it as it is easier for them if he does the same as the other children. I have to keep pushing and arguing my case. My DS doesn't sleep 12 hours at night like other children. After 9 hours he is often wide awake and raring to go. You have to fight for your child.

Rosebel · 28/12/2021 16:40

My son sleeps for 2 hours at home but at nursery 40 minutes is the absolute maximum he'll sleep.
I think it's because there is more going on at nursery and he doesn't want to miss out. They can't exactly force him to sleep if he doesn't want to.
Although if it's a good nursery they'll put him down for naps when you ask. My son only does mornings and they'll put him down for a nap if he needs one.

EbbandTheWanderingHearts · 28/12/2021 21:26

At home, most babies get a darkened room and it's pretty quiet. At nursery it's noisy. Depending on the size of nursery you may have several babies going to sleep at any time. Parents want their child to self settle/be patted/rocked etc. Some babies will cry and then wake up others plus the noise of the other children playing. It does take a while but generally babies become more settled and sleep better. I would suggest asking staff to put your ds down for 2 naps if he's only sleeping a short time.

EL1984 · 28/12/2021 21:44

I really feel your pain.
My son started nursery at 11mo and still very much on 2 naps per day at home.

He REALLY struggled as they worked around 1 nap at 12.30 for 1.5hrs.
I kept asking them to put him down at 9/9.30am for 20mins but it would only happen once a week if I was lucky (they sleep in the room they play in so is pretty much impossible). He would be a wreck.

So I've often ended up napping him at home for 15mins at 9am then dropping him in. I also try to pick him up by 4pm so it's not such a big day for him.
We were in this rut of one nap at nursery, overtired, waking early, needing to nap at home before he went in... lucky I'm quiet at work and WFH!

I have no idea how the other babies do it, nursery tell me some of them fall asleep at the lunch table .... I can't imagine my son doing that without having mega meltdowns before that point 😕

He is now 16mo and over this Xmas holiday break I've got him officially down to 1 nap as I think he was ready for it. Will make nursery life a heck of a lot easier!!

Do they have a separate sleep space? If so, they should put him down for a quick nap in the morning.
If not, are there alternative options like a childminder who could be more flexible with naps? In hindsight I wish we had found a childminder to overcome the lack of sleep. It will get better as he gets older but is a long few months of a tired toddler.

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