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!

If you’ve been working with a sleep consultant for nigh on 18mo with little improvement, then you seriously need to find someone else- they are clearly not cut out for the complexity of your case.

I found that childminders tend to me much more regulated / routine driven than life at home m and so when they have a mix of ages and kids who still nap when the quiet time music goes on or what have you then the children would naturally go to nap! So my twins would nap at the childminders even though they never did at home. Yes it caused major issues with sleep. Unfortunately nothing i could about it. Your childminder is right in that doubtful other childminders and/or nurseries would keep him awake. I just had to get through it as the childminder was brilliant in all other aspects

Our nursery supported us for dropping and reducing naps in the 2-3 year room. Our 2 year old needed a lot less sleep than our other child.

Find a different childminder. She's rubbish and shouldn't be childminding. If she were saying that he turned into devil child when he didn't nap, she might be right, but at best she's using her knowledge of child development above what she sees individual children need, and at worst she's deliberately making the children do what she needs to make her life easier.

she should be meeting you half way at least. She should try to stop the naps but if they are desperate for one then she should let them. Or having quiet time.

You are in a cycle now they aren’t sleeping at night so probably need that nap now though so it needs breaking.

And they would have supported it in DDs nursery, non sleeping children would be taken somewhere else.

You need to work on getting your child to bed before 10 what your describing is a typical overtired child who can't turn off and sleep has your sleep consultant looked at gradual withdrawal and getting a good bedtime routine or is she just taking your money saying stop the naps? You do know when he was 4 months lack of sleep is the norm don't you?

I'm a childminder and I wouldn't be agreeing to stop your child from napping either. At just turned two they need a daytime sleep and we have to put the children's needs first.

Parents often think that because their child can skip a nap with them on a weekend day that they'd be fine doing it all week with their childminder, but it doesn't work like that. At my setting, we hardly ever use screens and are constantly on the move. Children get a lot more exercise and fresh air than most do at home and it's constant interaction, with me and the other children. It's way more tiring than a quiet weekend in their own home and (for many children) it's also 5 days in a row compared to 2 at home.

I would work with parents to reduce the nap time to an hour and see if that helps any with the overnight sleep, but it's well known that an overtired child often sleeps worse at night and an appropriate length nap at an appropriate time actually helps with overnight sleep.

If you can find a childminder who is happy to keep a tired just turned two year old awake all day then feel free to move them there but I would be concerned at the standard of care that would be provided.

I dunno why you're working with a sleep consultant if it's not helping.
Some kids are just like that.
My son was a horrendous sleeper until he started primary school aged 5.
You need to divide and conquer as a couple, take turns etc.
Speak to your GP about melatonin, both my now teen kids have had sleep issues (very common in the neurodiverse), and melatonin has been very helpful to help reset sleep patterns.

Childminder here!
We should totally be working in partnership with parents! Ofsted tell us that we can't keep a tired child awake, however, we can wake them up after a certain amount of time. I've had many parents asking me to wake them after an hour, or don't let them sleep after a certain time which I've always gone with. I know what it's like to try and get a child to bed if they've had too much sleep in the day! I read somewhere that a child needs 45 minutes sleep to actually benefit from it, so and hours sleep is fine.

This.

I would personally reach out to nurseries by aged 2 they offer a lot more than a childminder for development anyway.

nurseries will absolutely support this my child stopped naps at 18 months, he was the only child in the room that didn’t but it wasn’t even a conversation he was fine

My mum always says I dropped my nap entirely (of my own accord) aged 12 months - which meant she never got a break in the day, haha. So this does happen early for some.

Can you compromise? My DD aged two wasnt sleeping until 11pm at night, so I asked childminder to limit her nap until half an hour - now she sleeps at 8-9pm, which works for both of us.

Surely it's different for all kids tho - as a toddler I apparently dropped my daytime sleep aged just 12 months. My mum was devastated as it was her daily "break" but surely all kids are different on this.

My two year old gets way less sleep overall when she has a daytime nap over 45mins, because she then goes to sleep three hours later at night, and also is up overnight.

If we limit her nap to 30-45mins she sleeps about four hours more per day in total.

I don't know about the OP but my two year old toddler gets about four more hours sleep a day when we either drop her nap or limit it to 30mins. I have no idea why, but it's just what works. A nap over 45mins means she barely sleeps overnight

We had this problem at nursery. Our 2yo dropped his nap at home and slept much better at night, but still napped at nursery and on nursery days wouldn't go to sleep until around 10pm. I spoke to nursery and they said because he wanted to sleep at nap time they wouldn't stop him, they only didn't nap children who refused it, and he would happily go off to sleep there. They did agree to cap his nap time to an hour, and then 45 mins. Could you do something like this?

I would expect childminder not to encourage nap however i wouldn't expect her to actively avoid it if her is tired.

I remember having to become like a butlins entertainer some evenings to avoid a nap too close to bedtimes. I wouldn't have done that earlier in the day.

There are more times when insufficient day time sleep leaves the brain hyper active and unable to settle....in adults it's I'm so tiered I'm going to sleep like a log damn I couldn't sleep in kids it's hyper bouncing off the walls the child needs support in learning how to relax just like the adults does with things like no screen time 2 hours before, dim lights etc.

Why do you think the child is made to sleep? The fact they sleep in a car or buggy proves they need to sleep you just over stimulate so they can't if you sit calmly reading a story and they fall asleep they need to sleep if they don't they go play they are not tied down.

Please back up your statement about nurseries offering a lot more in development? All settings work to the same standards are inspected by the same inspectors and required to demonstrate how they do this....what don't they get at a childminders?

She’s wrong - our nursery were happy to wake our daughter after 60 mins and I’m sure if I said no naps they’d support provided she wasn’t falling asleep. CM sounds like she wants kids to fit her routine. More than 1 hr sounds way too much and as you know your child doesn’t nap at weekends and is fine. Ridiculous. I think you need to find another setting

Suggest a compromise of testing a one sleep cycle nap for a week (45mins cap) and see how it works. My children’s nursery has always worked round all our requests as no child is the same. My oldest wasn’t even napping after 2 1/2 unless it was in the car. 7pm bedtimes every night is a must for parent sanity I believe!!

Thank you everyone for taking the time to give your advice/ opinion on this. We have finally got through to the CM. We made it clear that we are not asking her to force him to stay awake when exhausted. We understand that children in daycare get more tired than at home, so after lots of back and forth, we agreed to cap the nap at 45 mins and see how this goes. She said she won't go below this so if it doesn't work for our boy we'll have to think about options. But it's a shame that so many parents go through this, struggling with no support! Hats off to all who have gone through it, well done! 👏

Why on earth do you think a nursery is better developmentally? Nurseries and childminders both follow the EYFS, both work to the same standards and are inspected in the same way!

Nothing personal, just preference and opinion! My child came on leaps and bounds moving from childminder to nursery! That being said under 2 childminder was absolutely the right setting for them but over 2 I found nursery could and did offer significantly more experiences and improved their development no end.

But most parents know that whilst they work to the same standards inspected the same there are huge differences between the two.

Development comes on leaps and bounds between the ages of 2 and 3 whether a child is with a childminder, attends nursery or attends pre school. Often, childminders are able to offer much more varied experiences as they are able to be out and about every day. It’s fine that you have your opinion but to state they offer a lot more developmentally is rather unfair as many people find the opposite. Some settings work better for some children whereas other children thrive more in a different style of setting.