Nursery naps

[whyyy321]

Hi- looking for a bit of advice! DS is almost 14 months and is at nursery 5 days a week. He's doing 1 nap a day (he was on 2 when he started but would never really manage to take 2, he's very inquisitive and easily distracted from naps/wakes early wanting to play). Most days he manages about 1hr15-20, or sometimes 1.5 hours. These days he's totally fine in the evenings, happy to have his tea, play, have a bath and off to bed. However other days he'll only manage 40 min all day and he's a wreck! If we walk to collect him he'll maybe fall asleep for 20 min or so (on particularly bad days we extend this by doing laps of the block) but when he wakes, regardless how long this "power nap" is, he's so overtired. He cries and cries and it's difficult to manage to get him to have his tea or anything he's so exhausted.

I don't know what to do. Nursery say they try and try but he either refuses to go back down (if wakes early) or won't go down for a second nap. I wondered if the power nap is making things worse? Do I just keep him up, even if he's only had 40 min all day??

It's awful seeing him so upset and it's making me so sad how we get so little time with him and half the time he's just exhausted and screaming.

We've plans to drop to 3 days a week soon but I'm worried that those days will still be awful.

Any ideas? He's been at nursery since July and is nicely settled there apart from this (very happy to toddle in, loves the staff, eats really well there).

Do they get to an age when they can manage being tired a little better?? Do they still do this screaming if tired from school?

Hi, we are about 6 months ahead of you but a similar situation. Sometimes naps there for 35 mins when we get a good 1.5 at home.

On nursery days I don't feed a meal when we get home.or try a power nap. He has his tea there and milk and maybe toast at home, then an early bed. So makes up the nap time overnight.

What time are you picking him up? I'd just take him home asap, feed him and put him to bed early.

I'd also ask what nursery are doing to facilitate his naps. Are they in a dark, quiet room? Why is he getting woken up after 40 minutes? That's what needs working on.

Lately it's 5.30, because of work. I prefer when it's 5 but needs must. As I say, dropping to 3 days a week as this feels too much at the moment, for him and us.

They give him a bottle and rock him- the nap room is like a side space off the main room so I think it's just quite easy to get disturbed by noise. I was hoping 1 nap would help as it'd align him with other babies more but no luck!

We’re experiencing something similar with my 16 month old. She goes to nursery 4 days but it seems to take at least 2 of 3 days we have with her to recover after the 4 days at nursery. They all sleep in the main room st nursery and DD gets woken if one of the others has a bit of a cry while going down to sleep. Nursery are going to try putting her to bed last to reduce the chance of getting woken up which seems to be working but only a few days in.

My DS is 21 months and still has this issue (he started nursery at 12 months). He has serious fomo so will only nap 45-60mins at nursery At home he naps 2-3 hours.

I try and avoid a Power Nap as it makes him more upset to be woken up to be bathed/fed. He has tea at nursery, but I’ll give him a snack if he is awake enough when he gets home. We basically get home, bath, milk and then some quiet cuddles and reading.

What days are they in nursery? As I find giving him a break midweek helps. I work 4 days, and have Wednesday off, so he gets to have a good nap then.

We have the same thing with our 19 month old and have done since the move to one nap at 13 months old. Like you they really struggled to get two naps in especially around meal times.
1.5 hours at nursery I take as a good nap. An hour or less and I know it’s going to be a struggle to get him to sleep at bedtime because he’s overtired. He can easily sleep 2-3 hours at home.
unfortunately there’s not a lot you can do but wait until they get older and used to such short naps.
I am lucky in that I can pick mine up at 4pm. We go straight home, no tv or any big stimulation. Dinner between 5-5:30pm and up to bed for 6pm to try and get as much sleep overnight as possible.
I would try not to let him have a power nap as nighttime sleep is more beneficial and a power nap means he will go to bed later. I’ve even had mine scream to sleep 5:30pm in the early days when he was beyond exhausted. I just accepted it and let him have bedtime then because I knew it would be far more restorative and he’d still wake up at the crack of dawn anyway so might as well maximise night hours.
what time does he wake up and what time do you need to be in work? Back when mine was 14-16 months and he’d wake at 5-5:30am, I was able to walk him to nursery and fit in a 30-40 minute nap around 7am to then see him through to the lunchtime nap. That helped a lot.

Thanks all, stopping the power nap seems a consensus and I do think it might help as he seems so groggy when woken from it.

When he does a decent nap at nursery he'll do 7.30-7 overnight (he was an awful night sleeper until 11m so we are beyond grateful for this!). If he has a crap nap and a power nap he'll do 7- about 5/530, he won't be up for the day at that time but sleep well be very unsettled and he's tossing and turning a lot. We sometimes add a bottle at this point to get him to sleep till 7ish to maximise hours - this doesn't always work and is a bit annoying with breakfast timings etc.

I'll try dropping the power nap- he's Def got fomo and gets a bit of accumulation of tiredness as the week goes on. By the weekend he's exhausted poor soul. When he drops to 3 days he'll be home Tues and weds which should break the week nicely. Eventually he'll be just 3 afternoons a week as mil is picking up some of the childcare (we are paying, not just expecting!). So it shouldn't be a long term issue but that's not till the new year and it's just so sad him being so screamy and upset in the precious little time we have with him.