Argh 17 month old naps!!!

[tumtitum]

DD is 17 months and has always fought sleep. Have tried various things and sometimes they work for a time but never for long. She started nursery about a month ago, she is part time so is at home with me for half of the week.
At nursery she sleeps around two hours, on their crash mats, no black out blinds, no white noise etc. Before that she was with a nanny and would normally go to sleep in the buggy, but then stay asleep for a couple of hours. (On our days together she would sleep in buggy, but never stay asleep for that length of time.)
Now on our days together she.will.not.sleep! I used to be able to breastfeed her to sleep then transfer her to the cot but now she either won't fall asleep, or wakes when I transfer her. I've tried staying in the room/lying on the floor (often do this at bedtime and early morning wakings) but she just cries. If I leave her to cry she may fall asleep but more often than not she will just cry and cry (with me checking her) and still not sleep. She's at a real tantrummy stage where she will throw herself around the cot and bang her head so obviously I don't want this! She definitely needs her nap as she often only gets 10 hours sleep at night.
I've also tried lying down on a rug with her so similar to at nursery, and she'll often lie down in carpeted areas of the house herself when she's tired but that didn't work.
I get that she's had a big change and that she wants to spend time with me on her days off, so I'd love to reassure her while she goes to sleep but it doesn't work, she just won't sleep!
Sorry for the long post, I'm very sick of fighting her over sleep her whole life and now that I don't see her for half of the week I would also like to be enjoying our time together and not listening to her cry! :( any advice or solidarity welcome!!!

In the nicest possible way, it sounds like you are a softer touch than nursery or your nanny.

Taking it away from sleep, nursery will have some strict rules in place because of the number of children they have to crowd-control. There will non-negotiable expectations on behaviour. And while distraction and redirection techniques will be used to avoid issues, there will be consequences to help the children learn that certain behaviours will never be tolerated.

So sleep in nursery comes into the bigger picture of them expecting certsin levels of behaviour, in a non negotiable way. It will be established that you will lie down and close your eyes for a while now, whether you want to or not, because that is the behaviour we expect from you. And if you mess about even a tiny but, there will be consequences (because they have to consider the sleep needs of several children) because messing around at sleep time in unwelcome behaviour.

This whole ethos of behaviour expectations is why children can often behave very differently for different people. Your nanny probably deployed similar subliminal high expectations and zero tolerance methods, which again transferred over to sleep.

So maybe now your baby is turning into a toddler, she could do with some firmer boundaries on her behaviour as a whole?

I'm sure it's also copying the other babies too as she is copying EVERYTHING at the moment...
Not really sure how to set boundaries other than by doing things I am already doing like staying with her and telling her to lie down, or leaving the room and coming back to tell her to lie down and sleep periodically.
Incidentally, whilst being babysat at a family event last week she would literally just put herself to sleep on the sofa sitting with the babysitter and her child, no expectations ", boundaries etc, she just decided she was tired, so some of it is just down to her not wanting to sleep around me I'm sure.

And my nanny was a not very experienced first time nanny so not sure of her high expectations either!!

Hello again tum! I really do think our toddlers must be meeting up and conspiring... my 17 month old is still the same. Naps at nursery on his own for 1.5 to 2 hours. No problem. Will not do this for me. At all. I'm STILL holding him for his naps on the sofa. Not good. When I try putting him down either awake or asleep he just screams.

I think you have a point when you say it's about wanting to be with us. My husband puts him down awake every night and he goes off to sleep with no issues. I try and he just cries and cries and calls for me. Stops as soon as I go back in. At some point I'm going to have to tackle it...

we are also still waking up early, 5.30 is the new normal - could (and has been) much worse! But are down to one nap, although it's a struggle to keep him awake in the morning and it's usually at 11am - again the Miracle workers at nursery don't have this trouble.

Once again I'm no help, but they do say misery loves company!

With my son when it comes to sleep and naps I have strict expectations just like Fate says. I put him in the cot after a bit of a nap/bedtime routine. Sometimes he goes to sleep quickly but other times, like yesterday, he can fight it for ages (an hour an a half yesterday). I don't let him cry or get too distressed without comforting him. But these days more often than not he's trying out new skills in the cot and I just leave him to get on with it. He has to know that I am not giving in - if he goes in his cot for a nap, he's not coming out until he's had a nap. It's rare he takes as long as yesterday, but when he does I stay consistent. It's frustrating and I feel like screaming (and sometimes do), but he always sleeps eventually

Hi Summer, nice to see you although sorry to hear we are having the same woes!! Touch wood our bedtime is okay at the moment, but this really varies, it can be fine for weeks then suddenly horrendous for weeks for no discernible reason! We are having pretty early wake ups too, apart from last week on holiday when she didn't wake before 6, no idea what was different, room was the same darkness etc! Oh well. DD is on one nap too but what is so frustrating is that if I go anywhere in the car or the buggy in the mornings she will normally fall asleep (sometimes she even falls asleep in her bike seat on the way to nursery at 8am!!) and once she's had a sleep, even just for ten minutes, she seems to think she has had her nap for the day and it's incredibly difficult or impossible to get her to nap again!!

Sorry I can't see the other poster's name as I'm on the app, but thanks for the comment. My problem is, if I try to tough it out and leave her in her cot to sleep, even if I went back in to comfort her she won't be comforted unless I either feed her (and I want to stop BF soon so don't want to encourage this!) or turn the lights on or in some way indicate that nap time is over; she won't be cuddled, she won't be comforted in her cot. I'm well aware that her cries are angry rather than discomfort or anything, but I still find it unbearable to have her screaming and crying for an hour or more until she sleeps (have tried in the past when she was messing around trying to crawl/stand etc and after 3 days of crying for 1.5 hours twice a day for naps with no improvement i just gave up!!!). Another issue I have is that she's at nursery for half the week, then when she's at home we might have two or three fairly routine days (or maybe not, as both mine and DH's family are long journeys away and we see them frequently so we often travel) then at weekends we will tend to have plans so her naps may be on the go etc, so I worry that I might go through all this screaming two days a week only for her to forget in between or not have a clue on which days she is meant to do what!! I don't want to have hours of screaming if It's all fruitless :(

Sorry, I know I'm batting away suggestions! It has crossed my mind that maybe because our lives are quite unroutined therein lies the whole problem! We're resorting to an after lunch buggy nap today anyway!

Also, one final thing, sorry I'm rambling!! I find it hard to do a nap routine with her as she starts fussing as we go upstairs and she knows what's coming!! She's a very alert child and I think she doesn't really know how to switch off (much like her father!!) but she fussed through books etc so I struggle to teach her how to wind down! :(

because our lives are quite unroutined therein lies the whole problem

This

It's difficult to expect the best of both worlds. If you want to live an essy-going, as-you-like life then it will be much more difficult to establish routine and strict boundaries at sleep time. It won't fit with your wider parenting ethos. That was the point I was trying to make in my earlier post.

she doesn't really know how to switch off

All of my children have needed to be actively taught how to switch off and relax in order to go to sleep. It wasnt wasn't something that came naturally, it was proactively taught.

I'm not sure that's to do with how active or alert a child is. I think most healthy babies are alert and active - it's an alert and active stage of development.