Childminder disagreement

[Smil95]

My son has recently turned two and has never been a big sleeper, always dropped his naps earlier than his peers. We have been working with a sleep consultant ever since he was 4 months old as the poor sleep has had a huge impact on our life as a family.
He has been on one nap a day ever since he was one year old and it has worked really great for him. This is when he started going to a childminder. For the last 6 weeks he has started refusing night time sleep till after 10 pm and waking up for 2 hours in the night, every night. It has been horrendous, as for weeks we have had to once again function on very poor sleep. It has started impacting our relationship and our jobs.
We mentioned to the childminder that it might be time to drop or reduce his nap as this is not sustainable for us. She said she won't do this and no nursery will do this either.
I would totally pay for a nanny if I could afford it but, unfortunately I can't and the CM is great otherwise.
The sleep coach also confirmed he needs to reduce / remove his napping.
Please if anyone has any tips, how to approach this. Or any sleep tips on the matter, that would be great. Thank you all!

I can't help in terms of practical advice, but I can say anecdotally that your childminder is wrong. If a child doesn't want to nap at my DS's nursery they don't have to. Less sure what they would do if the child wanted to sleep though tbh

That's terrible. Our nursery would definitely support you in this.

She doesn't want to lose the downtime his nap gives her. I'd make sure she understands the implications and find a new cm if necessary.

My youngest started to drop his nap around 2 and our childminder was fine with this. It seems unreasonable for a childminder to not be ok with it!

Does he want to nap? Are you asking the childminder to keep him awake, or just not put him down for a nap?

I'm a childminder and I won't keep a child awake who wants to sleep.

If a child is tired and is falling asleep then a childminder would need to let them sleep. They can't make a sleepy child stay awake. The child's needs must come first.

However, they can keep the child occupied and see if they are able to manage the full day without sleeping. They don't need to be proactive in encouraging a nap.

When I was childminding I would swap nap time for quiet play, for those children that were not necessarily needing to sleep during the day anymore. This could be somethibg like reading, quiet free play or some TV time. If the child stayed awake that was fine. Some would fall asleep whilst playing so would be made comfortable to have the nap they needed.

I have quiet time after lunch so I can go for a wee and eat my own food.

I have had this with my oldest, she just wouldn’t sleep at night after a nap so I understand it’s frustrating.

But having worked in nurseries for years, it’s not always as simple as them skip a nap. I have been through this disagreement with many families. Having one child awake at sleep time can disrupt the other kids sleep, or it means having an exhausted child screaming all afternoon. There can be a compromise of the child just having a rest and limiting how long they can sleep. If your child minder can’t accommodate your child then ask at your local nurseries how sleep is managed. But ask the staff in the room not the director as they will just tell you they cater for individual needs and it may not be the case. I can’t tell you how many kids aren’t meant to nap, but will still nap.

Does he get much fresh air? We were told that this really helps give a child a good nights sleep. Is it possible for you to take him out in his pram for a walk before bed?

Surely this is just bog standard? Dropping that last nap is torture for lots of kids - if they nap they're up until all hours, and if they don't they're exhausted by the end of the day. Best to ditch the nap - dragging out the transition helps no one, been there, made that mistake.

Unless he's falling asleep into his lunch or something, it's not in his best interests to be encouraging a nap as he'll be up late and not get enough sleep.

This would be a deal breaker for me. Not just that she won't help by supporting the no napping (yes I agree she can't prod him awake or whatever if he falls asleep but definitely she can not offer a nap and keep him occupied), but also by blatantly lying about no nurseries or childminders being happy to do it.

I would be looking for new childcare.

I had a child who didn't sleep so I know how bad it gets.

I don't think the nap at childminder is the problem. The refusal to sleep in the evening is probably a reaction to the major change of going to the childminder at all. So just persist with a regular calm bedtime at home at a normal time and stick to that. It may take another week or so, but your child will go back to sleeping at a reasonable hour. You just have to be really consistent for at least 2 weeks.

Well actually, as a childcare professional I’m not sure I would be happy to just agree to no sleep either.. he’s only just 2. Do you stop him from napping at the weekends/when he’s not with the childminder?

If he was in the toddler room at nursery, he WOULD definitely be encouraged to nap with his peers. When I worked in a nursery, those children we had to ‘keep occupied’ at their parent’s insistence while their peers slept often fell asleep in their tea.

Your CM is wrong and you need to swap to a different one. She is clearly counting on having the kids asleep half the time to reduce her workload. That's not right.

It depends how it was worded to the CM.

No childcare profession is going to actively stop a child from napping all day if they're desperate for a nap. She is right in that

Not encouraging a nap is very different to having to stop a nap

Just lazy childminding.

all kids go through this stage where if they sleep for 2 hours in the day it mucks up the rest of their life and their family’s

compromise is the way to go. Nap for 20
minutes and wake. Bad for your childminder but that is what is in your child’s interests.

If he was in the toddler room at nursery, he WOULD definitely be encouraged to nap with his peers.

He wouldn't be at ours, or any of the ones we viewed, all of whom had a couple of toddlers sitting quietly doing puzzles and the like during nap time.

Ours also supported our eldest to nap long past three when there was no nap in her room by bringing her to the toddler room to sleep there.

They're supposed to support the individual child aren't they?

I think it is relevant is she saying she won’t stop him if he falls asleep or she is going to put him down for a nap .

I have had parents when I was c. Minding wanted there child kept awake for that reason . In actual fact they weren’t ready and would fall asleep on the school run - although maybe shorter later.

how long does he nap? Could you reduce or limit nap , talk about quiet time .

As much as the setting could allow I suppose. They really can’t all do that, at only just two it would be expected that he’d nap. At 2.5/3 maybe that would change. Depends on the facility/availability of staff.

We are not even supposed to physically wake a child up if they are under age two- according to current childcare practices they’re supposed to sleep on if they can/want to, because presumably they need the sleep. Naps are are important developmentally.

So is overnight sleep though, and anyone who's had a baby or toddler knows that there are definitely phases where too much daytime sleep really fucks with nighttime sleep and leaves them exhausted and cranky.

Euggh. I feel your pain. I remember when my son was at that stage. He was actually ok with a short nap but sometimes I would collect him and they would tell me how fantastically he had slept ..’3 hours! He is such a good sleeper isn’t he!’ That night would be a nightmare.
We had to be really determined that they only let him sleep for 30-40min and that then they had to prod him awake. They would feed back that they had done it, but make me feel bad like it was the most awful thing ever.
I always felt like there was an element that it made their life so much easier to just let him sleep for hours.
Unless one of them wanted to come to my house to stay up with him until 1am I felt just fine in my request.
Good luck convincing yours.

That’s true and something to take into account when selecting a childcare provider. I don’t think the CM is in the wrong.

I always think guidelines should be just that- guides, not the law.
For most kids it might work best, for some it won’t. There has to be flexibility. If the parents generally seem to be reasonable human beings who have their child’s best interests at heart and aren’t making a load of ‘out there’ requests then surely you have to think they know their child?

Your childminder should be supporting you and also do what you ask as a parent ( obviously as long as no safeguarding ) I would find another childminder if I were you, she should do as you ask and do what's best for the child. It seems to me you child minder wants a break in the afternoon.
( child minder ).

Mine pretty much stopped napping by 18 months, unless he was in the car, or in a buggy walking about. But we had no more regular naps in a bed etc.

I think your CM may be 'forcing' naps, as it is obviously easier to manage and gives her downtime. I had a friend who used to do that. She would put both her kids in bed for 2 hours 1-3pm or similar, because she wanted the downtime. The older one was fine with this as he was a big sleeper, the younger one would sit in his cot for 2 hours bored or playing, I am not sure. She did this for years, until they started school!! .

I remember interviewing a nanny and not taking her because she was insistent all my kids would nap at the same time, which never happened for us, because she wanted a 'guaranteed break'.

Anyway I would tell the CM that he shouldn't be made to sleep, he can have downtime by playing quietly (or at worst, watching TV. Not good, but at least you will sleep).