13 month old and about to start daycare...need major help re NAP!

[tanya032009]

Sorry for the short post (hehe..not much time, so much to say!)

In a nutshell. My darling, SPIRITED little DS is about to start daycare fulltime on Monday. He has been going for 2 hours each am for the past week and it has NOT gone well. Major crying and then won't leave my side all afternoon, throwing tanrums, etc. Poor dear. So, major, major SA.

DS has always had difficulty sleeping, despite my pretty much spending every single day focused on independent sleep and EASY since he has been 6 weeks old. He is one one nap now. We still struggle with many NWings and EW. There may be medical reasons for this, and we will have testing done in Sept. To say the least, our paed says his sleep behavior would be seen in maybe 1 in 1000 babies. We do co-sleep for the last part of the night, to provide a safe environment for his night thrashing, etc. I am not looking to tackle this with all the other changes he will go through in the next month.

Ok. So...to nap. We have our winddown and then I usually sit by his crib, sometimes patting the mattress to tell him to lay down, sometimes he will hold my hand, sometimes I will stroke his head, or other times just sit there.

What do I do for daycare? It is homebased. She is a lovely, kind woman..but she has other children to look after. She cannot spend 30 mins sitting near his crib. I am completely lost on this...

I have basically told her that under no circumstances do we want DS to CIO. None. Does that mean he may not get any daytime sleep? Am I crazy for not caring how he gets to sleep, if it means he does not CIO? Arrghhh..so difficult! I did explain the WIWO method, but tbh, it did NOT go well for me (yeah, tried that too) and I am worried that it will be more like controlled crying, as she will not be able to rush in at first cry.

At this stage, when I am not there, DS is basically crying all day and wanting to be up in the nanny's arms...if he is playing, he cries if she leaves the room.

This is just so hard. DS always played happily on his own in our home...so the new clingy, whiny toddler is taking me by storm!

Please help! Any suggestions welcome! How will DS nap?

Tanya

[Tweakster]

HI there, oooh Tanya so many hugs.  We are right in the thick of it, I mean with the daycare SA.  It's pretty bad.  Maybe it's worse for Spirited kids?  Which seems weird to me but hey.

You want him to sleep, in fact I would say he must get daytime sleep.  Given the fact that he may have medical problems on top of being a tricky sleeper with rough nights, well daytime sleep is carrying him through.  Sooo I would say you let her do some APOP to get him some sleep i.e. rocking, stroller, whatever will work.  How does she normally get the other kids to sleep?  What are the room conditions like i.e. is he on his own or with others?  Does she understand what you are telling her about CIO?

The SA does get better but there are regressions.  We had Finn in daycare from March - June.  At first he was the same as your LO, they had to hold him almost all day long.  By June he was barely looking at me when I dropped him off, he would just run off to his friends.  Then went on a 3 week break for holidays.  In that time he decided he doesn't like daycare.  We have had him back in daycare again since Jul 12 and it has not gotten any better.  He cries and screams every day now.  Regression. 

[~*Nicole*~]

Why one nap so young if I may ask? She may have better luck trying for two shorter naps if that's what it takes to get him enough sleep each day. If she can't get him to nap without crying and she can't attend to him the way you'd like, I would DEF see if she can APOP. Swing, stroller, vibrating something or other.

DD had an awful time learning to nap at a sitter's house (or any house but ours as a matter of fact) but the MORE time she's spent at places, the better she has gotten at sleeping there. We've had our fair share of no nap days when she refused and if he won't sleep and she has to get him up so he won't be CIO then let him skip and get him to bed as early as possible. It's better than breaking that trust, ykwim? But have her try for a nap every day. Also, if she has to tweak his schedule b/c his tired signs or whatever are different there (from being OS or OT from not napping well yet) let her follow him as opposed to what he's been doing at home...until you get things sorted. But always GUIDE her so she knows what is going on at home and what to try next or whatever.

Just keep the lines of communication open and it should work well!