Naps!

I know that this topic is going around right now but I have a question for the 1 1/2 and 2 year old moms.
My most recent post was about my kids getting bit in daycare. I don't know if they are acting out because they are tired. Today I am home with them and they wanted to go down for a nap at 10:30 am. This is the time that they used to take a nap when I stayed home with them. They still want to lay down for a nap at this time on the weekends also. I know that at daycare that they take naps at 12:00 which would be late for them. My kids are sleepers they love to sleep they usually take 2 naps on the weekends and that is what they did when I stayed home with them also. So my question to you is how many naps do your kids take? And also does your daycare have a set time that they lay them down for nap? If they do have a set time do they ever lay them down early if they are tired?

 

My girls moved to one nap around 15 months. At first, it started around 11am and we had to work later. By the time they were 22 months (and starting daycare) we had worked them back to a nap start time of between 12-12:30, which is the specific nap start time at daycare.

Our daycare has a 0-18 month room, and an 18-30 (or older, if not potty trained) room. The sleep in the 0-18 month room is not really scheduled, but it is in the 18-30 toddler room.

You could definitely be right, my biter tends to bite when she's tired.

 

My boys are 16 and a 1/2 months. They nap once a day at noon. We've been on this schedule since about 14 months, although recently the nap has started to extend to 2 hours or more (yeah!). I love the one-nap routine: time to play and go out in the morning, lunch, a sleep, and then time to play and go out before dinner. It works very well for us. We had to put them to bed earlier for the first few weeks to avoid crankiness, but that soon passed. My boys sleep 7-7 (on a good day!) and nap 12-2ish.

 

Speaking from the daycare perspective -
My center has two infant rooms (birth up until they are crawling/cruising and from crawling/cruising until they are young toddlers(off bottles completely, can eat independently) and a young toddler ("toddler 1") room (where infant 2 ends until they are 2.5 or so) and then the rooms progress by age, like an elementary school.
The nap and eating schedules are child led in the infant rooms, so there may be an 15 month old still taking two naps (or even sometimes three!). The children in the older infant room are encouraged to transition towards one nap, after lunch, on a nap mat instead of in a crib and for the most part will not be moved up until that is achieved. However, especially during the first few months in the toddler 1 room, the children may be going down earlier then their peers. Our schedule is such that lunch is around 11:30 and children are transitioned to quiet time when they finish - so a young toddler may go right to sleep, while an older child may choose to look at books before settling down closer to 12:30 or 1pm

If you think your kids are acting out because of overtiredness, could you speak to their teachers about it? I know that its tough for us in the toddler rooms to have scattered naps because the awake children want to pounce on the sleepers! However, might it be possible for your tired kiddos could take an early nap in a quiet room, like a younger classroom?

 

At the age your kids are, they took one nap every day. But when they started in the toddler room at daycare at 13 months (after being in the infant room where they got naps whenever they were tired), they went to one nap at about 11:30. At home, they kept taking two naps until 16 months.

In the toddler room, the teachers can't really lay any kids down early if they're tired, because there's usually some activity going on. However, they did tell us that especially for the really young toddlers, if someone is super-tired they might be encouraged to go play in the "loft" area which is kind of a quiet zone. And if they fall asleep up there during the morning, the teachers usually let them sleep.

The toddler teachers gradually shifted the 11:30 naptime later during the school year, until by the following year they were napping at about 12:30. They still do that at age 2.5-3, but on weekends the whole nap is shifted about an hour later. That's because we do our primary activity in the morning and it's just annoying for me to try to have them in bed by 12:30.

My point is mostly just that it hasn't hurt them to have one schedule for home and another for school. It does sound like they may be tired, but there's not much you can do about it except try to make sure they can catch up on their sleep on the weekends. If they need 2 naps on weekends for another few months, unless it really interferes with something else you want to do (or unless it means they're staying up really late at night), I'd just keep giving them 2 naps.

 

QUOTE(BounceTigger @ Jul 17 2008, 07:15 PM) [snapback]881872[/snapback]
Speaking from the daycare perspective -
My center has two infant rooms (birth up until they are crawling/cruising and from crawling/cruising until they are young toddlers(off bottles completely, can eat independently) and a young toddler ("toddler 1") room (where infant 2 ends until they are 2.5 or so) and then the rooms progress by age, like an elementary school.
The nap and eating schedules are child led in the infant rooms, so there may be an 15 month old still taking two naps (or even sometimes three!). The children in the older infant room are encouraged to transition towards one nap, after lunch, on a nap mat instead of in a crib and for the most part will not be moved up until that is achieved. However, especially during the first few months in the toddler 1 room, the children may be going down earlier then their peers. Our schedule is such that lunch is around 11:30 and children are transitioned to quiet time when they finish - so a young toddler may go right to sleep, while an older child may choose to look at books before settling down closer to 12:30 or 1pm

If you think your kids are acting out because of overtiredness, could you speak to their teachers about it? I know that its tough for us in the toddler rooms to have scattered naps because the awake children want to pounce on the sleepers! However, might it be possible for your tired kiddos could take an early nap in a quiet room, like a younger classroom?



Are you sure you aren't a teacher at my children's daycare?!!! What you said yesterday about the biting situation and this post about the schedule is exactly what my center does!!!

So mine are in the older toddler room, and ever since they moved up from the infant room they have been napping once a day, right after lunch which is at 11:30. Just like she said, they have quite time after lunch to wind down, and they almost always take a 2 hour nap, sometimes 2.5 hours!

I hate that you are having these issues, I just hope that the communication can be improved and their schedules can get worked out so momma and little ones are all happy! :hug99:

 

Mine are the same way. They are 18 months, but ever since they were 12 months and in the toddler room, they've been on 1 nap/day between 12-2ish....

At home, they still will sometimes take 2 naps/day, early at 10 (or 9 depending what time they wake up) and then late afternoon around 3-4 for about an hour.

I've found though that if we don't go out and do something, THAT'S when they want 2 naps. If we plan an outing (beach, park, zoo, etc) then we can squeeze just one nap and they're fine, and they don't fuss either about being tired or whatever if they do just get the one nap. I think it's the same way for daycare. They keep them so busy and occupied in the morning that they don't really 'miss' that early nap, and they go straight to sleep after lunch.

For the most part - we kind of just take cues from them as to when to put them down for naps, etc. on the weekends, so we definetly DO NOT stick with the weekday daycare routine. Even if they do just take one nap, it might be at 11, or it might not be till 1 depending on what we're doing, etc. and ours will usually sleep BEFORE lunch on the weekends (we've tried, they don't like to eat before they nap) whereas at daycare they nap AFTER lunch....


I wouldn't worry about it.

 

At school the boys do very well with the school/nap routine. IF they are real tired they may begin to doze near the end of lunch. On weekends, holdiays, summers when they are with us we let them go down for a morning nap and afternoon nap if they desire. Usually though, they just have an earlier lunch and go down for an earlier afternoon nap at our house.

I have no problem adjusting the schedule at home to fit their needs. The boys seem to understand this is home vs. school and go with the flow in both places.