How to shift DD's nap times to match nursery?

[pickledlily]

DD is 19mo. She's always been a really crap sleeper, thanks to silent reflux, but has finally started to nap for an hour now during the day and touches everything wooden in sight even longer if at home. Hoorah!

The problem is that nursery put her down for a nap at 12.15, after lunch, but as she's usually been up since 5am, she must be shattered. On home days, she can rarely stay awake past 10.30/11am, which messes up mealtimes as she doesn't get lunch until sometimes 1pm (nursery is 11.30am), and tea even later, but then she's overtired at bedtime (6.30pm).

When I pick her up from nursery she is a wreck - very clingy and tired. She's just gone up a class and didn't eat lunch for the first few weeks because she was just too tired. She now seems to be slightly better, but we end up picking up the pieces on her home days.

How do I break this cycle and get her sleep times aligned to nursery?

I would concentrate on resettling her at 5, the Baby Whisperer way of lightly disturbing them as the show the first twitches of waking and resettle them help. Then once she is sleeping longer into the morning get her up at a fairly consistant time on nursery and home days, ie allow her 20-30 minus more sleep on home days to give yourself a mini lie on on weekends.

I would try to mimic nursery feed and sleep times and if she has been active at home she should hopefully nap well and be less cranky in the evening.

You mean I have to actually get up at 5am and not lie there hiding under the covers pretending I haven't heard her? How many nights does it take to work? There's not much time between her stirring and being wide awake, literally seconds. One moment she's fast asleep, the next she's sitting up and babbling.

DD fell asleep early again this morning but slept for 3 hours. She must have needed it, but it completely messed her meals up for the day.

I'll set my alarm for 5am and see what happens...

If she is content then by all means leave her to it. I would wake her at a sensible time should she fall back asleep to keep the day on track, after all even 1 hr more is more than usual.

So no need to stir her at 5 this morning - she was woke at 4.30am. . Managed to settle her again but she woke 30mins later having done a massive poo. Sorry, tmi.
So this morning she fell asleep at 10. I doubt she'll have another nap, so this evening will be fun.
This what i find so hard, its impossible to make/stick to plans when no 2 days are the same.

woke?! Awake. Awake!!!

www.amazon.co.uk/Solve-Your-Childs-Sleep-Problems/dp/0863181228

we and friends used this but I've since heard it's controversial - no idea why

Thanks Julia, just looked it up and realised it's Ferber - "controversial - no idea why" - I'm guessing you're new to the sleep board!

I don't have a particularly strong view on it (for toddlers anway), but personally don't want to use CC on DD due to her silent reflux - it's just not possible to know whether she's crying in pain or she's just 'unimpressed'.

How did it help with your early wakings?

She woke at 4.30am again this morning. But another tooth has just appeared, so who knows...

Feeling pretty low. Was out last night (only the 2nd time in 18 months) and a friend who has no kids told me "you just have to let her cry all night, then she'll learn that no one will listen". Thanks for the top parenting tip mate I promise I won't mention your Aspergers to anyone.

In all my 24yrs plus of professional childcare i have never done cc or cio, i just cannot not answer a summons.

Hi oP not sure if this is something you have thought of, but ime early waking is usually linked to the nap being too early. If she usually naps at 10-11am at home this is not going to be helping the situation as it will keep her in the early waking cycle. If you want to align her naptime with nursery, the best way to do it is to slowly push her nap later by 15mins per week until it starts at around 12.30pm.

Do not be tempted to do it all in one go as it will backfire with overtiredness. If you stick at it for several weeks, you will find her wakeup time starts to improve & you will be able to push bedtime back towards 7/7.30. Hth.

NMP, they wont do it at our nursery either.

Omama, that is exactly the problem I'm having. 3 days a week she is put down at 12.15, so is then overtired, especially by day 4 when she's as home, which is when she passes out by 11am. I will try pushing it back 15 mins though.

I've started bringing her bedtime earlier again in the hope she gets enough sleep to last a bit longer before her morning nap. No luck so far, although she did sleep until 5.15am this morning ignores the 3 wake ups during the night

Wake ups will always happen, as i was told once, you can only claim your child sleeps thru when you didn't get up last night and tonight is a new night!

Early bedtime is a good plan, current baby is 12mo and has usually done 13hrs at night but can do 14! This helped in the dropping to one nap going down at 12:15/12:30 and waking between 15:00-15:45 most days, tho recently she has woken at 14:00 and chatted and faffed about and after several resettles has then gone back to sleep for at least an hour.

They are knackered after nursery, totally normal. On the days she isn't there she is probabky tireder so sleeps earlier, also no adrenalin like when there.

I would just relax and let her sleep when she wants without over analysing it.