How to help your baby or toddler to nap at nursery
Whether your child is just starting at a childcare setting or is returning after the holidays, you may be worrying about how they will cope without you there and how they will nap in a different environment. Your child’s sleep may already be terrible, and you do not want it to get even worse, or it may have just improved and you cannot face going backwards.
The hardest part of my children starting at childcare was letting go of the control of being mother aka the decision maker for them. Your child’s sleep is such a huge part of your parenting day and it has a direct impact on yours and your child’s wellbeing. The idea of your child’s sleep deteriorating further probably fills you with deep fear and anxiety.
Here are my 4 tips on how to avoid disrupting your child’s sleep when they start at nursery or a childminder’s.
Choosing a childcare setting
If you are yet to choose a childcare setting, I recommend where possible to look around the setting including where the children sleep. You may find it useful if the setting offers a separate sleep room. From my experience, most nurseries will put babies to sleep in cots and toddlers on floor beds or mattresses. Having said that please do not worry if you have already chosen a nursery with a sleep area within in the main room e.g. where the children are playing. You can still help your child to sleep in a busy and noisy environment. For example, a first step would be to get your child used to sleeping in a noisy space at home.
Expectations
My biggest lesson I navigated when my children started at nursery was to have realistic expectations. Firstly, the staff are looking after a lot of children’s needs and it really is a balance of discovering what they have the capacity to do when it comes to your child’s needs including their sleep. Secondly, your child’s sleep may regress when they are settling into the setting. The environment, the energy, the faces, the stimulation are all different and new compared to your home. For a lot of babies and toddlers this results in refusing naps or taking shorter naps. Your baby is likely to be overtired if this happens, which can lead to further night waking’s and early rising. During this bumpy time, I recommend that your little one goes to sleep earlier at bedtime to reduce the overtiredness as much as possible.
Daily Routine
Childcare settings have a daily routine that they follow for all children. This may be different to what you do at home, but don’t worry, children adapt very quickly. Talk to your child’s keyworker to find out the details of your nursery’s routine and specifically ask when the children are taken for a sleep. Ask whether the childcare setting can follow your routine at home. If your child doesn’t have a routine at home, the routine of childcare maybe beneficial for your baby’s sleep.
Replicate
Where possible ask the nursery to replicate your child’s at home nap timings, routines, environment and sleep associations. For example, if your child has a specific story book at nap time, has a comforter or listens to white/pink noise then ask nursery to do the same. If you are breastfeeding your baby or toddler to sleep, as a first step try to encourage your baby to sleep in the buggy or in your arms before they start. However, if there is not enough time to start this, no need to worry as all nursery staff are trained on different ways to help your baby to fall asleep.
