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Toddler not sleeping at nursery - unmanageable evening tantrums

26 replies

AllyRose10 · 07/10/2025 18:58

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.

OP posts:
Are your children’s vaccines up to date?
Nosleepforthismum · 08/10/2025 20:00

Same thing happening here so solidarity with my 2.5 year old but we are now getting to the point where even a 10 minute nap will allow her to power through until 9pm so I’ve accepted that 3-6pm is a nightmare for a while. Food immediately after nursery helps. I give them their proper dinner straight away and then cereal or toast before bed. Good luck with it all and yep, sadly, my experience with DD is that hour long tantrums are standard.

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