Nap interfering with bedtime - nursery policy advice

[Toddlertroubles00]

DS is 2 (25 months to be precise) he now is having trouble falling asleep and is not getting to sleep until around 9pm most nights. If he has a short nap he can be asleep by 8:30pm (30/40 mins) if he has 1 hour + , he can be up until 9 or 9:15pm.

At home on weekends, he is no longer wanting to nap and just wont sleep. Which means he is going to bed at a normal time of 7:30pm.

At nursery he is still having it, although they have said he is the last to go down for the nap and does resist. They have a policy which means they are not allowed to physically wake them up, but are only allowed to make noise around them. They also said they have put him in a louder part of the room to wake him sooner.

This policy is incredibly frustrating, as i asked them if they can “make noise” around him and not let him sleep for more than hour, however i feel i need to ask them to reduce this to 30 mins. Today at nursery he has had a nap for 1 hour 15 minutes.

In the mornings my DS is often needing to be woken as he is tired due to going to bed so late.

Can anyone provide any advice on what I should do? Id like to have another chat with the staff but not sure what they can do with this policy in place, alternatively I could ask them to not put him for a nap. But they seemed resistant on the idea, incase he crashes late afternoon.

Any advice would be appreciated

Anyone able to help?

I would ask them not to put him down for a nap but seems like they could be against this, it’s worth asking as it’s so stressful when they won’t go to sleep for hours.

What time do you pick him up? If you could get him around 4pm then you can make sure he doesn’t just fall asleep, if it’s around 6pm then it might be harder for the staff.

Could you ask that they try to put him down first and if he doesn't go to sleep with 'light encouragement', that he is allowed to remain awake until collection. When dd was at the 'danger nap' stage, I had to get some really obnoxiously loud, flashing toys for the car to keep her awake as it was a 40 min drive home.

I think you just have to suck it up to some extent, he will drop the nap soon enough. You could ask if they would only do a nap every other day maybe?

Thry will be keen for him to have a nap because it is easer for them.

I think a lot of nurseries are reluctant to waking a sleeping child (best practice guidance doesn't encourage it) unless it's really clearly in their best interest overall – very late bedtimes, very early wakes, split nights sort of level. Right now, you're caught a bit on the border – his current pattern is inconvenient, but not quite to clearly unsustainable.

With that in mind, I think I'd ask them to try moving to naps every other day – just a trial. If it works, great. If it turns out he crashes out at 4pm and then is up until 11pm, you'll all know he's not quite ready to skip the nap at nursery and you need to muddle through a bit longer. Ideally you want to keep a good working partnership with them on this because often children need the occasional nap long after they've dropped them as routine. It's a huge help then to have nursery staff who recognise the child is flagging today and feel confident that you'll support them having a nap today to avoid that late crash and up half the night.

My kids dropped their naps at age 2 (ie 24 months). My childminder was happy to stop putting them down for a nap (at my request), but she would let them sleep if they started dropping off or getting really teary later on, whereas at home I could have put them in the bath or fed them snacks or whatever.

I think it’s fine to ask them to stop putting him down for a nap but equally be realistic that in a nursery, an overtired child is quite problematic - it’s probably best to plan for success at nursery and handle the fallout at home when he’s in his safe place with more adult attention.

A lot of toddlers have a nap wobble around 2 years old where their sleep goes a bit funny for a few weeks but then goes back to where it was befote
How many days is he at nursery?
My DS goes to nursery 3 days a week and dropped the nap at home around 2.5 years but still napped at nursery.
On nursery days we did a slightly later bedtime and accepted that he'd be chatting to himself or singing in bed until 9pm and would be grumpy when the alarm went off in the morning.
If he was at home and hadn't napped then it was an early bedtime of 6pm and a lie in if possible to let him catch up on sleep.
After a few months of jumping between different schedules he dropped his nap on nursery days and is now back to a 7am - 7pm day.

That's a ridiculous policy. I got nursery to cap my girl to 30min nap at around 2.5yrs. She wasn't regularly napping at home at that age.

If they won't wake then it's no nap at nursery! Mine started off no nap but was falling asleep at tea, hence the 30min nap. Since around 2yr8 month they asked her if she wanted a nap, it was sometimes yes and sometimes no

My nursery just used to tell you what you wanted to hear but I’m convinced they were allowed to nap as long as they wanted. Occasionally they’d slip at the door and say “he slept well, for two hours!” And I said “oh his nap limit of 30mins” and they’d say they were confused and it was only 30mins.

It’s really hard work OP but it will all settle when he drops his nap altogether.

My child's nursery wasn't like this, but a friend's had a similar policy and unfortunately they just had a pretty awful time for 6 months or so till the nap was dropped completely. They chose that over changing nursery as the nursery absolutely refused to do anything differently.