Author Topic: Naps (hardly) and nursery - advice?  (Read 1446 times)

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Offline Meg's Mom

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Naps (hardly) and nursery - advice?
« on: September 15, 2005, 02:52:38 am »
Hi

My turn to ask for help, as this is new territory for me...Megan started nursery 2 mornings a week as I am a wahm (getting impossible to work w/ her under my desk  :wink: and to give me a bit of a break.

Our usual nap times are 10am (1 to 2 hrs, varies) and 3pm (1hr exactly).

Day1 at nursery she took her am nap @ 10.45 for 45min (predicable, my LO a reformed 45min over and over again) - I thought good, off to a nice start.

Day2 she took her am nap @ 11.25 for 15min! – urg i said! 

I transferred her from the car to her crib as she fell asleep on the way home.  She slept for 45min in her crib, double urg!  I gave her time to resettle but got in there to do pd when she started to go over the edge and she total lost it when I tried pd.  Obviously so overtired!  After 20min of pd and shh/pat, I gave up and put her in the stroller where she rested, but didn't sleep.

What should I have done at that point?

I need to ask some questions at the nursery so that I know what is going on, so I am probably premature in asking for advice, but does anyone have advice or experience you can share that might help?

Offline Matthew's Mommy

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Naps (hardly) and nursery - advice?
« Reply #1 on: September 15, 2005, 23:58:37 pm »
Find out what is happening at the nursery, how she is settling down etc. 

What time do you usually pick her up?
Jane
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Offline Meg's Mom

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Naps (hardly) and nursery - advice?
« Reply #2 on: September 16, 2005, 17:14:14 pm »
Hi Jane, I will ask on Monday.  We go M & W from 9am to 1pm.

Things have gotten worse at home too...her naps were excellent before starting nursery.  Just pop her in the crib, hand her blanket and say good night.  She didn't want any wind down and we had successfully eliminated the bottle near nap time (long ago I introduced a small bottle before nap, then slowly it became a prop and before I knew it she was sucking to sleep - we successfully re-trained about 4mo).

The past 2 days she has fallen to pieces at nap time - she is also sick and separation anxiety, understandably, appears to be at its peak. 

When I tried pu/pd she got even more upset.  So I put down the rail and kneeled next to the crib, trying shh/pat - she stood and put her head on my shoulder and just cried, and cried  :cry: .

So I have gone back to doing a nap wind down of rocking and re-introduced a small bottle which seems to calm her.  BUT I feel like I am going backwards and asking for trouble by falling back on the old bottle/prop.  But I am not sure what else to do?? 

So much easier to give advice  :oops:

Offline chell

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Naps (hardly) and nursery - advice?
« Reply #3 on: September 16, 2005, 17:46:57 pm »
Hi Michelle, not sure what advice I can offer you, but I have had very similar problems with Jacob, when he began nursery. I guess I am quite lucky, in that the staff are quite good in many ways, but they did (and still do sometimes) have difficulty in carrying through the requests I make about sleep.

Jacob was always a 45 minute napper, and sleep is something we have had to work hard at.

I was wondering whether the nursery would let you introduce Megan very slowly, in a graded way. This is what we did - starting with me being there for a couple of visits, then leaving him for 1/2 hour - 1 hour - 2 hours - a whole morning and finally a whole day. We transitioned this over 2 weeks and he settled in ok, (he was 6 1/2 months)
Also, having just one allocated nursery Nurse to begin with really helped Jacob, so he could make an attachment more easiliy, before being introduced to anyone else. Perhaps you could suggest this?

The things that I have done to try and improve the situation, regarding his sleep have included, trying to build up a really good rapport with staff (!), actually being there for his first ever nap at the nursery and showing them how I do it,  talking lots about BW methods to try to get them interested!, explaining and educating them about the methods I use, lending them my BW video, also giving them and Jacob time to get to know each other and to get used to the new environment.

Alot of this has worked, the problem which tends to crop up is when he goes through different stages which may affect his sleep, or for example (like now for me)  trying to extend/ amalgamate naps. The staff at my nursery are quite young and do not have babies themselves, which I think makes a difference, as they don't quite understand the importance of sleep! They also have traditional views about sleep, eg, "if we keep him up for longer he will sleep better later!" It can be quite frustrating at times, but at least they do listen.

I hope this might help a bit, I'm sure things will get easier. :)

Good luck

Cheryl
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Offline CW

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Naps (hardly) and nursery - advice?
« Reply #4 on: September 16, 2005, 19:41:34 pm »
I am a work from home mom, too.  Is it possible for you to take your DS to the daycare AFTER a morning nap at home?  Then she's well rested and if she doesn't have a good afternoon nap, it's not as big a deal.  I have my mom watch my DS once a week at her home, and it seems to work better if we go after his morning nap.  Because I can never anticipate the kind of nap he'll get with his nanna!

Offline Meg's Mom

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Naps (hardly) and nursery - advice?
« Reply #5 on: September 18, 2005, 03:39:57 am »
Thanks everyone for your posts, I found them very helpful.

A quick update...settling for naps has gotten progressively better over the past few days.  As I said I went back to our old wind down - return to basic's  :) .

We fought the 45min nap monster at 4mos and every time she needed to either drop a nap or extend A time.  We have worked tooooo hard to have her naps messed up now!  Don’t mess w/ my naps man!!

CW- I wish I had more flexibility but I MUST work in the morning as that is the only time I can catch my colleagues in their time zone.  (8hour time difference).  Her am nap is at 10am and she is at nursery from 9.30-1.00. 

What do you do w/ your LO on most days??  Do you find it difficult to be pulled in so many directions?  Maybe we chat about this in the lounge?

Chell - I like what you did, on Monday I am going to ask if I can stay and put her down for her nap myself so I can see what is going on.  Although based on what she did for me the past few days (eg: not settling for her nap) she is not doing anything near what I told them she would - typical!

I'll keep you posted and thanks again, I feel much better!