Toddler not sleeping at nursery - unmanageable evening tantrums

[AllyRose10]

Our nearly 3yo DC is in a new room at nursery and no longer sleeps there. Every evening when coming back, DC is completely exhausted and has terrible tantrums - which can last from 15/20 mins to over an hour. We are good at keeping our calm through it but are exhausted by them.

We try our best to give DC a “short” day considering we both work (drop off 8.45am, pick up 4.30pm, which seems to be less than DC’s friends who are there already when we do drop off and are still there at pick up. I work 4 days a week so DC has a break mid week and can have a less demanding day and nap at home. We put DC to bed early (6.30pm, tantrum and cooling down time permitting).

nursery has said they can see DC would benefit from sleep but nothing works - various things have been tried including changing sleep times etc.

AIBU to be considering a sort of after school nanny for even earlier pick up? DC is obviously in tantrum phase but they are so much worse when DC doesn’t nap, and they never sleep in - always up at 6.00.

at the moment it also means that doing bedtime alone for DC and younger sibling is proving impossible - although younger sibling self settles the environment is stressful/loud/disrupted. (We do use loud white noise). It is very difficult to manage as I am having to miss work events.

thanks for your advice. We love the nursery and the socialisation but are finding this difficult to manage.

I think it's quite unusual for a nearly 3 year old to still be having regular naps. Sadly it's quite normal for children that age to have tantrums!

Do other children at the nursery have naps?

It’s a hard age as they often begin to drop naps between ages 2 and 3, it’s quite normal for a nearly 3 year old to drop it and transition is often hard. You may just have to ride out the tantrum stage, my dd had awful tantrums from age 1 but now age 5 she rarely has one so has been slowly growing out of them over the last couple of years.

Honestly at 3 years old I’d be riding it out & accepting that the nap is being dropped I think. If they are sleeping 6:30-6am that’s a really good amount of night time sleep, and I’m not sure that an earlier pick up would really help. I would think at 3 if you said 3pm pick up with the hope being say a 3:30-4:30 nap you’d then be hitting a brick wall with a 6:30 bedtime and you’d then be shifting tantrums to the morning because they would be then not getting enough night time sleep. My daughter is only 18 months old but I know if I let her nap at all past 3pm bedtime is a joke so by 3 I’d accept nap is done with and just get through the transition.

Is he sleeping well at night? If so you might need to let it go and ride it out, it is the time to drop them.
I would ask the nursery if they can do some quiet time with him instead of battling, a rest might do better than fighting sleep.

It’s a pretty normal age to drop naps. Mine went to school nursery at 3 and they didn’t facilitate naps there at all, not even for the summer borns like my DD. Just one of those things you have to ride out. In the meantime pick up as early you can, feed a simple quick tea, maybe consider some calm TV so he can chill and then put to bed early (maybe 6 rather than 6.30 so you can aim for 12 hours) and hope they adjust soon. I wouldn’t consider an after school nanny for what is a temporary issue and a nap at 3-4pm or whatever they would do is going to lead to even more problems at bedtime and/or with early waking.

Thanks. At home DC sleeps for 1.5 hours at 1pm. Still goes to bed at 7. It is all very tricky… I’m in tears and exhausted. We do aim for 6.00 for bedtime but it’s often unmanageable due to tantrums.

If their usual nap is 1pm and that’s the time that works then rather than pay for a nanny for early pick up to try and accommodate that you’d be better off just moving DC to a childminder/nanny setting. I would say though that at 3 it is really common to be dropping the nap and so it may just be that anywhere other than home where it’s “boring” DC choose not to sleep.

Is he sleeping through once he does go to sleep? If so, I’d be inclined to just tolerate the tantrums and hope it’s temporary. Surely a nanny would have to do pick up at 12/1pm, if they picked up mid afternoon that’s too late for a nap. Maybe a childminder would be better but I expect a 3 year
old would drop their nap soon anyway/

When do they eat?
I found hunger more of a cause for tantrums than tiredness. Both mine stopped naps at 18 months!
Do they have an afternoon snack? When are meals eaten?

Thank you. So is an hour-long tantrum within the realms of normal? That is what we have in the evenings, and wake ups after an hour which could possibly be due to being so wired from the tantrum (the crying starts again, the cycle is on again).

To be honest it sounds like a very normal nap dropping transition. Unless you/he/nursery manage to pick the exact day when he first needs exactly the night time sleep he gets but without the nap, to drop the nap, then there's bound to be a transition time where he's not sleepy enough to nap, but then hasn't napped so is grumpy in the evening!

What is your routine in the evening?
Is there anything in particular that sets off a tantrum?

Hour long tantrums can absolutely be normal for a 3 year old who is going through a big transition yes- which dropping a nap is.

Can you ask nursery staff to have him nap in his previous room, if he was napping there? Our nursery does this with preschool kids who still need a nap.

More generally - the approach in the UK is what you see above - “Oh well, typical at this age, just ride it out” but both me and DH come from cultures where naps are enforced (yes really) until 4/5. I think feeling tired to the point of hysteria day after day for potentially months isn’t what I want for my children, and I did twist myself round like a pretzel to facilitate this (still do - turning four this week and still napping five days a week). So you have my sympathy.

Ok, that’s helpful to know. We have a very regular routine so that’s not an issue. I guess we ride it out and hopefully in a month or two this will just be a distant memory.

How long has it been? Can you do anything to make evenings calmer? Relaxing bath or TV when they get home?

My daughter is also 3 and just moved up to the preschool room with no naps. It’s certainly an adjustment and she is often too tired to eat dinner when we get home. She sleeps a bit longer in the mornings which helps as we don’t manage bed before about 7 or 7:30pm but it is making me late for work as she doesn’t want to get up at the moment. I am going to ride it out for now and let her nap on the days we are at home. She has a medical condition which makes her more tired than other kids so definitely still benefits from napping.

Yes it can be normal, the transition to no naps is hard. It could also be that 6pm is too early for bed soon, if waking up after an hour of going to sleep at night. My almost 2 year old is dropping naps at the moment, he goes to bed at 7pm, up for the day at 6.30am and will occasionally have a nap at 12pm but mostly doesn’t now.

3 year olds need between 10 and 13 hours sleep but you are putting your child to bed at 6:30 and moaning they are up at 6, very normal to drop day naps at 3. Put to bed later they get up later, tantrums happen as they are unable to convey what they are feeling.

Thanks but I’m not moaning, looking for advice, and it’s obviously difficult to convey a whole situation in a post so I don’t think that type of suggestion is helpful.

Is he settled in the new room? Is he comfortable with the staff? Are there older children whom he may find intimidating?

Yes.

sorry.

Can you ask nursery to allow him to try to have a nap in his old room?

You might find the evening routine needs tweaking if he is no longer napping during the day.

• eating different things at different times
• adding in quiet time
• earlier bedtime etc

Only in the UK. I'm from a different European country and live in the UK now but all kids very much still have naps until 4-5 back home and childcare settings are geared up for it. Even at 5, when we started school, I remember being given 20 minute quiet time when we would all put our heads on our desks and take a quick nap.

Thank you all for the advice. @LivingOnCoffee567 that has also been my experience. I will try some tweaks and we’ll see the other side of it with our (otherwise lovely) DC!