New nursery sleep legislation

[Chattycatty32]

Help! My baby has always struggled to sleep at nursery but since the new law it's even harder for her to be settled and the nursery staff are struggling. Is anyone else having a similar issues? Are there any nursery staff or parents with any good suggestions?

The whole point of the post is for advice on not contact napping

This is what I do
Dim room, white noise on, same routine every day
Rock to sleep in my arms ideally cuddled up with a comforter (dummy, teddy or muslin) from parents
Put down in cot on side and jiggle/rock/pat baby with my hand on their bum
If they wake or get upset, pick up and rock again til asleep
Put down, rock/jiggle til asleep
Roll baby gently on to back and remove any toy or muslin
If baby stirs, give them another little shush or rock

Over their first few weeks settling in I can move from rocking to sleep, to rocking til sleepy, to putting them in the cot and just patting, to putting in the cot awake and they settle themselves.

Thank you. I'll have a go at this. 😊 Wish me luck 😂

in my setting when this is the case we would rock and hold them to sleep if they fell asleep we would give it a short amount of time and then they would be transferred to a cot or a bed. If they woke up on transfer we would pick them back up to cuddle and rock again, gradually though say if they were to wake up 30/40 mins after they were transferred thats where we would pat their tummy’s or stroke their faces etc so this would give them another source of comfort rather than just straight back to in the arms. It does take time but if they are a good practioner they’ll not care and put the effort into supporting the children into non contact napping.

This is utter rubbish. It's completely normal for babies and toddlers and children to need support for sleep.

OP if I were you I'd be challenging the nursery, how does holding / rocking to sleep having anything to do with safe sleep. Its safer in my opinion as the baby will regulate their breathing to the adult. This new guidance is all excessive in my opinion, and actually quite cruel to not provide comfort.

Regulating their breathing to an adult is the dangerous bit!

Hey I’m a childminder and I’ve always put babies/toddlers to sleep in a cot or once above 15/18 months on a sleep mat. The only thing with new guidance that’s changed for me is that I might have kept child in a buggy once home if they’d fallen asleep in buggy. Now we must transfer them - I’ve now stopped parents bringing buggies to my place as they take up space and are a hygiene issue and now that under no circumstance no sleep allowed in them they are useless to me and I’d never want an inspector to think that I used buggies to sleep because they’d seen them on site. I never rock a baby to sleep - never have done - it’s in my policy - as if I do that to one I’ll be in the room rocking everyone for ages. However my local authority also said that we should not be letting children fall asleep in our arms for our own safety, so I understand your nursery’s policy. I might pick them up for a bit then gently put them down again. What I will do is sit next to them and pat them and talk calmly. I manage to have 3 or 4 off to sleep within 15 mins this way. Before starting at my setting I do encourage parents to teach their child to settle without being pushed in buggy or driven in car.

I totally understand why your nursery has done this. They are worried about blame and want a hands off policy. They’ve come down with very strict rules about safe sleep when that poor baby was killed by a cruel woman who should not have been near kids. She did not die of SIDS, she was murdered. She strapped the baby down to a bean bag. They should be looking at why nobody whistleblew this terrible staff member rather than put these strict rules in.

All of this is totally reasonable and to be honest a lot of nurseries did this before the legislation.

They can hold baby to sleep to calm them and then place down or they can pat them to sleep on the mat (this is what our nursery has always done, my kids weren’t used to patting with us).

I think for OP asking them to pat as she gets used to going to sleep on the mat would be useful - there is no way or interpreting the guidance that this is not ok.