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!

That’s absolutely fine, my comment was my opinion and yours is yours 🤷🏻‍♀️

A couple of things to unpick here.
Is it possible it’s not the nap itself that’s disrupting his sleep but the time he is having it. Because a nap that’s over by 2pm is less likely to impact his sleep than a 5pm danger nap! Perhaps she’s just letting him sleep too late?
Also, is it that she’s saying she’s going to continue to actively promote nap time eg cot, dark room, long journey, or pushing back and forth in buggy? Or is she just saying that if she absolutely can’t keep him awake despite trying to keep him busy she will not stop him sleeping? Because those are two very different things. I’d be annoyed by the first, not so much by the second, you’ll know as a parent how hard it is to keep a sleepy toddler awake.
I would find any advice to drop the nap completely a bit odd given his age- many or even most two year olds still need day time sleep or can at least manage a well timed nap without it adversely affecting night sleep.

Have the conversation with her if you haven’t already about when he is actually sleeping because I would strongly suspect she is allowing him to nap too late. Ask to her make sure naps are over by 2/3pm and capped at 1 hour. So no car journeys after that time, some activity outdoors, no being in front of TV/ipad and certainly no actively ‘putting down for’ a nap at that time.

Its a very tricky stage though sleep wise, that stage of being about ready to drop the nap but falling asleep at dinner time phase so you have my sympathy but remember it will be just as hard for CM. Unless of course she is just a lazy sod who is only too happy for him to nod off!

My son’s nursery don’t do naps, they are open 8.30-2.30 and my son does until 12 as he needs naps. They take kids from age 2. So your childminder is talking rubbish

Having been a childminder and I’m also a parent I can see both sides of this! I have had parents insist that their child doesn’t nap because they want them in bed earlier. In reality children are so busy at a childminders with playgroups and activities they are always shattered by lunchtime. I tried my best to keep one awake and she would literally just fall to the floor asleep!!
It can also be difficult for a childminder to do naps at specific times etc as if one sleeps mornings and one lunch and one afternoons you can’t go anywhere during the day.
What needs to happen is a discussion between childminder and parent where both listen to each other and decide on a plan of action. I have had agreements with parents that I won’t put them down but if they fall asleep I leave them an hour and then gently wake. Or that I do put down as early as possible after lunch then wake after an hour. It’s easy for people who haven’t been childminders to say that she wants “time off” in reality this doesn’t happen anyway as there’s always someone who won’t sleep or who slept in the pram earlier so now isn’t tired. It can be really difficult keeping a grumpy tired child awake and them being upset upsets everyone. Childminders are also obligated to put the child’s needs first so a crying tired child or a child falling asleep where they are sat needs to be able to sleep.

Are you getting good sleep advice? Naps tend to help nighttime sleep, especially if (and he sounds like it?) under 18 months. Are you feeding him at night or giving him water? Are you cosleeping to encourage going back to sleep? Split nights are usually linked to something else, so I would look into that. It's an exception (not normal) for a baby to sleep through. The bedtime issue could be related to over tiredness and as well as low sleep pressure - if we leave my daughter too late she gets overtired and ends up with a later bedtime than if we get her in bed on time.

Just all thoughts, but sounds like something else might be at play if sleep is such an issue.

But children have sudden leaps in development so it's hard to say if its the setting or just the rate of development.
Please tell me what the huge differences are? I've had reception teachers say how much better prepared childminders children are than nursery and parents remove children from nursery for going backwards.
We do lunch club ...15 children twice a week, story times with groups of 10 to 20 children, forest school, music times. There is a home corner, book area, creative and mark making areas, construction, messy play you name it. I've got 4 double six foot high cupboards of resources and run a toy library. The main difference is we go out in the real world

If a child falls asleep your not allowed to prevent it sleep deprivation is a form of torture every child has a right to rest....see rights of the child....your nursery sounds like a preschool set up originally for older children Ofsted will ask to see rest areas.

If he doesn't nap at Childminder you may find he falls asleep on the way home. I would suggest capping it and moving it closer to lunch.

You might find the info in the first 6 words of the OP....