Disturbed nights after 30 mins of naps at nursery. Will it get better?

[Exhausted13]

My 13 month old has just started nursery. He’s only been there 2 weeks so far, 3 days per week.

He has 2 naps at home, normally totalling around 2 hours. At nursery he’s refusing his morning nap and eventually passing out after lunch but due to the bright, noisy environment and probably from being overtired, he only sleeps for 30-40 mins. The nursery staff that’s quite standard so I don’t have much hope for it improving. When I pick him up, he’s happy but wired and hyperactive - which is normally his sign of being overtired and overstimulated.

Due to the awful naps, we try and get him to bed around 6.30pm. But it’s taking a long time to get him to sleep because he’s so wired and then he wakes hourly until around midnight and then he might do some 2-3 hour stretches. Some night he wakes 6+ times. Before nursery he would wake twice a night on average.

Someone please tell me it gets better. Will he eventually start sleeping longer in nursery or will he eventually get used to it and the nights return to normal?

Bump

a bit of both hopefully. As in hopefully be will start sleeping longer but regardless, as he gets older he will get used to it and nights will improve. It's really hard though dealing with this especially as I'm guessing it's because you've gone back to work. Hang in there, think it was about a month for us

Our son started nursery at around 14 months and also attended for three days a week. We had a similar issue in that at home he had two naps but at nursery they tended to encourage one nap. This meant when he first started nursery his naps were all over the place, sometimes he had one nap at nursery or very occasionally no nap at all as he became overtired and too stimulated. This in turn lead to some unsettled nights at home with him waking up a lot in the early evening until he settled into a deeper sleep.

It took a few weeks but he eventually learned to have one decent nap at nursery and then after picking him up we would put him to bed slightly earlier to give him chance to sleep for longer.

It was slightly rocky for a while and on the days he didn't attend nursery he would still tend to have two naps. I would say just give him the chance to adapt and offer him option of two naps on the days he doesn't attend nursery so he can catch up. This is around the time they drop to one nap anyway but obviously the window for this is quite wide and so the transition might take a while.

In short he will adapt and it will get easier - just brace yourself for the nursery bugs and illnesses! 😬

Thanks both. @selloveday @Magicfairycake I’m hoping he gets used to the brightness and noise! He’s never been very good at napping on the go due to too much going on so I’m hoping he manages to overcome it at nursery soon 😬

Our daughters naps were all over the place at nursery until she transitioned to 1 nap each day. Since then it's been fine, she doesn't sleep as long there but enough to get by. I gave up worrying about it in the end and just dealt with whatever happened. It was easier once I gave in to it rather than tried to solve it!

@SErunner how long would she tend to nap at nursery?

To add she dropped to 1 nap very late (18 months) and started nursery at 7 months...it was a long slog!!

Before it settled anything from 20 minutes to random 2 hours. Now consistently 1-1.5 hours, occasionally 2.

It’s hard with nursery as it’s so very different to at home. Ask them to keep trying for two naps,they might succeed in a few weeks. If not they will adjust to the nursery routine.