Nursery naps - what would you do?

[BeeAnn]

DD is 13.5 months and has a half hour nap in the morning after 3hrs 45mins A time, then has another 3 hrs 15 mins A time and a 1.5 hour nap, and then 3 hrs 15 mins A time till bedtime.

This has been working quite well for the last two or three months at home. 

At nursery they say that they will stick to our schedule but her naps do vary quite a lot.  usually 30-40 mins in the morning and then 30 mins to an hour in the afternoon but they usually put her down earlier than we would (sometimes with only 2 or so hours A time because they say she just gets sleepy).  I think that she wakes more because of the other babies than the A time though, because even if they push her to 2pm she still wakes earlier than at home.

she seems to cope quite well with it though, and sleeps well at night still. 

In the next two or three months she will likely move to the next room at nursery but can't move until she is on one nap a day from 12.30pm - 2.30pm. 

So my question is would you start trying to go for one nap at nursery and hope she gets a longer, better nap or just stick with things as they are?  And if you go for one nap do we just do it cold turkey now or drop the morning nap to 20mins?

She is an angel / textbook baby but used to get quite badly OT and cry a lot before a nap if she was, although that hasn't happened since she was about 8 months.

[*Becky*]

Tbh if she is only getting short naps both am and pm at nursery I would work towards getting her on one so hopefully it will be a more restorative one. What does her routine look like atm?

[BeeAnn]

Thanks for the reply.

Her routine at home is:

WU 6.45am with Milk 160ml
Breakfast 8.15am
Sleep 10.30am - 11am
Lunch 12.30am
Sleep 2.15pm - 3.45pm
Dinner 5pm
Milk 200ml then bath and bed at 7pm

I wake her up from both her naps and usually in the mornings - always have done.

The routine we have tried to get them to put her on at nursery (4 days a week) is basically the same naps with the mealtimes slightly different:

WU 6.45am with Milk 160ml
Breakfast 8.15am (or 8.30am)
Sleep 10.30am - 11am
Lunch 11.30am
Sleep 2.00pm - 3.30pm
Dinner 3.30pm
Snack at home 5.45pm
Milk 200ml then bed at 7pm

What is generally happening at nursery is she goes down for a nap anytime between 10.00am and 10.40am and sleeps usually for half an hour although sometimes it is 40 mins (maybe when they forget about her?!).  Then she sleeps again between 1.15pm and about 2pm for 30mins, 40mins or if we are lucky an hour.  They say that she is tired and they can't keep her awake longer but I wonder if it is because most of the babies nap earlier (I think around 12.30am or 1pm) and so it is easier for them....

I should mention that she has only been at nursery for 4 weeks so not sure if her naps will get longer when she gets more used to the sleeping environment?

Was thinking about dropping her morning nap to 20mins but not sure how that would work and what time her second nap would be?

If we try to transition her to 1 nap should we change her routine both at nursery and at home?

[*Becky*]

I think if it were me I would aim for 1 nap at nursery and then give some 2 nap catch up days at home but no BTDT experience so will try and get some more eyes on for you x

[Haribo2012]

Hi hun, my DS started nursery at 11 months and I'm sorry to say naps went a bit to pot! I think unfortunately nursery tend to do what the majority of kids do so for my nursery most napped at 9.30 then 12.30 which for my DS didn't work.
In the end I had to push the 1 nap and be quite firm and say I don't want a 9am nap please put him down ASAP after lunch so this was 11.45 ish and to be honest we mostly got 1.5 nap!

I have had to come to terms with nursery naps being a bit rubbish and at 20 months DS still varies on nap lengths so I just go with EBT and he does catch up on non nursery days.
It has got better for us as DS copes quite well with OT as long as stimulated and that keeps him going at nursery and I just have to be very calm and speedy when we get home x

[Buttonbobs]

Hiya, my Dd started at nursery this time last year when she was 14 months old. We had just gone to one nap but she was taking this at around 11.30/12 at home. On nursery days she had to nap at 12.30 with all the other children. To begin with she barely slept but we just fixed BT as early as we could and then let her catch up on non-nursery days.

It might be that she is getting quite OS at nursery so the second nap is short even though she's tired for it. If the two naps is working for you at home you could stick with it a bit longer at nursery if you wanted. In my experience DD won't sleep long naps at nursery because of the other children. The longest she's ever done is 1hr25 but her nap at nursery is often 1hr or less. At home she'll still nap for two and a bit hours most days.

How is she managing at BT and nights?

If you're still getting a reasonable night I'd be tempted to stick with what you're doing for now. If you went to one nap you might get a good long nap, or you might get only one short nap. What do you think?

[BeeAnn]

Thanks for all the replies.  Her nights are still fine at the moment - we tend to put her down around 6.30pm or 6.45pm depending on how her naps have been and what time her last nap was.  She still STTN and we wake her up at about 6.50pm.  she doesn't seem too tired when she comes home.

We are a bit worried that if we tried to move to one nap a day then it would be a short nap and so she would be even more tired, but I also don't really want to hold her up from moving to the next room up because of her naps - and I don't know how long it would take to transition! 

So that is why I was wondering whether we should try a 20mins nap in the morning and then an earlier afternoon nap - basically as the next step towards the 2-1 transition.  Or should we leave it until nursery say that she is ready to move with everything other than her nap?

Or maybe we should get them to stick to two naps but push both naps a bit later in the day - although she needs to be up by half three for tea.

It just seems quite a big A time jump from napping at half 10 now to probably napping around 12pm if she went down to one nap??  Did all of you just take that leap at some point and hope it worked out ok?!

[Buttonbobs]

I would say make your decisions about naps based on how she is at home. If you think she's ready to move to one nap at home then go for it. If you don't think she is, then don't do it just because it'll make it easier for the nursery and her move into the next class.

It is a big leap, but remember that you're doing a UT nap at 10.30, so it needs to be quite a bit later for her to be tired enough for a proper nap. If you are thinking about one nap I'd probably go for 11.30 first and see if you get a long nap rather than going straight to 12.30ish. You can always do EBT if you don't get a long enough nap then.

If you want to keep two naps for a bit, a 20 min CN in the morning sounds like a good plan. The only probably will be getting nursery to stick to that precise timing as it's hard for then to do so with all the other LOs too.

[BeeAnn]

At home she doesn't seem to need to move to one nap - that's not to say that she wouldn't cope with it though but she is sleeping ok at the moment.  I had heard that with angel or textbook babies sometimes they don't always show signs of needing to change routine though.

I did think that 11.30 would be the ideal time for her one nap but that is lunch time at nursery so 12 is probably the earliest she can go down.

I think I will speak to her key worker and see what they think.  Maybe we will wait a little bit longer.

[Buttonbobs]

I had heard that with angel or textbook babies sometimes they don't always show signs of needing to change routine though.

My E was angel/textbook too and I missed a lot of her signs of needing an A time increase as they were so small. The good thing that goes in your favour is that angel/textbook types also often cope well with OT, so if you did go to one nap at nursery at 12 then she may cope well with being 'not quite ready' for it if you see what I mean.

E was definitely not ready for one nap at 12.30 when she started nursery but she coped, and her night sleep was pretty good, which was the main thing for us as a family.

I'm sorry there's not an obvious answer to this, but it's probably a bit trial and error. Maybe give it a go and see and if it doesn't work after a week or so change back. How many days of the week is she at nursery?