Does your toddler sleep better or worse after nursery?

[PjQueen89]

My 21 month old naps well at nursery but he consistently sleeps badly at night after a day of nursery and I’m not sure why. (He attends nursery 3 days per week). He struggles to wind down and takes longer to fall asleep and he wakes more frequently. We’ve tried putting him to bed earlier on nursery nights in case he’s more tired than usual but he just takes even longer to fall asleep and still wakes loads. Over Easter bank holiday, he slept like a dream and slept through every night, which hasn’t happened in ages. I just know that now he’s back at nursery it’s going to go to pot again!

Has this happened to anyone else? What are your theories about why?

He's probably over stimulated by nursery. He will likely grow out of it

Nursery teacher here!
You may want to reduce his nap time at nursery.At our setting,we usually ask the parents how long they would like the child to nap for.
I am also a mum to a 2 year old.Some days she naps at nursery,some days she doesn't. Same goes with her sleep at night..she might have had a nap and sleep well or do the opposite 🤷🏾‍♀️

@Lifehaslifedme We’ve recently asked them to cap his nap to 1hr 15 but it hasn’t made a difference. He sleeps the same at home but his nights are still different post nursery.

Son spent all day sleeping in nursery to he was 2.5 yo so worse.
Daughters refused to sleep in nursery so better.

We get night terrors on nursery days! I think it's because he's over-stimulated and over-tired as has no naps.

My DD has always been much harder to get to sleep on nursery days, she's really hyper and overstimulated, bedtime is always later on a nursery day. She hasn't grown out of it in 2 years unfortunately! But then she's always been a bad sleeper.

@Hoplolly how do you know it’s a night terror vs. something else? Have you found anything that helps?

Overstimulated/overtired? If that's thecase, they do grow out of it but it can take a while. Miserable until they do!

My dd is 2 and doesn’t sleep as well on nursery days. She’s overtired from being constantly busy and we are home for tea/bath/bed later than on other days so she has less time to wind down on the days she needs it most. She’s usually ok when she is asleep, but it takes a long time compared to other days.

@TinyTeachr do you know if anything helps with overstimulation? I’ve tried earlier bedtimes in case he was overtired but it doesn’t help, but perhaps that’s because he’s also too overstimulated to sleep

I've been through it before with my older DS!

They always happen about an hour or so after he has gone to sleep. You can't comfort a child with a night terror, you kind of just have to let it play out as they generally have no awareness anyone is there. He can be screaming, crying, normally his whole body is shaking. After a few minutes, he'll do a big yawn and then go back to bed. WIth night terrors, they never remember it.

Probably overstimulated.
And on top,toddlers cannot express and share all that happened to them in a day like adults, and they struggle to make sense of new setup by themselves.

Give enough gap between nursery and sleep and encourage child to talk about day (as much as it will be few words on a repeat probably).
It helped my toddler although I till have to deal with meltdowns day after the last nursery day in the week. He is just super needy that day.

Does anyone ever get the feeling nursery might not be totally honest about nap times? Adding on or taking off 10 mins here and there due to the difficulty of keeping up with lots of kids, or keep parents happy.

Unfortunately there's not a lot you can do about overstimulation. It's the nature of nursery to be loud and busy. Just try to make your evenings very calm - quiet, dim lights, low activity levels and plenty of snuggling to help them be less fidgetty. As they get older they tolerate it better.

I do think they fib a bit about sleep times. And also about eating....

Yes, always over tired on nursery days. Mine is 2.5.
We do an early bedtime and no bath, just try to keep things low key on those evenings. Not sure there's much else you can do.

Dd usually sleeps amazing well at night after nursery, though every 2 months she will have a bad one, and yesterday was it.

She also naps at nursery for 2 hrs midday. She's 2.5