Daycare napping: How To Lengthen Daycare Naps That Are Too Short

How To Lengthen Daycare Naps That Are Too Short

If you and your baby have been so frustrated and exhausted by short naps at daycare, at home, your little one naps for a good hour, hour and a half, two hours, and at daycare, it’s 20 minutes. What do you do? In today’s video, I’m going to give you some strategies that we can use at daycare to hopefully help lengthen these daycare naps.

Today is the epitome of everyone’s daycare woes, short naps.

I am going to walk you through some strategies that we can communicate with to our teachers and even kind of help you ease your mind about these frustrating short naps at daycare, which, let’s just put it out there, it’s going to happen.

Why Short Naps Are A Thing

Why? Let’s dig into, first of all, why in the world should we expect short naps at daycare? Well, it’s bright, it’s loud, and there’s generally no form of any time of nap environment that you’ve created at home here at daycare.

It begs the question: Why would we be so concerned with our nap environment at home if, at daycare, it’s completely different?

I get this question a lot. And the answer is, we need to do anything and everything to preserve your baby’s naps when they are at home.

We’re going to create the best environment when we can. We’ll use all the things to make sure it’s right!

When they go daycare, it’s different. Your baby is adaptable. They will learn to sleep at daycare, and they will learn to come back home and nap at home.

It generally takes about a month for a child to get used to this new environment at daycare, but once they are napping well they probably will have much shorter naps than they have at home.

Nothing Will Work If…

Now, none of these strategies that I’m about to share will make sense or work if your child doesn’t know independent sleep habits.

If they rely on rocking, pacifiers, bottles, nursing to feed to sleep, and then depend on something exterior besides themselves to put themselves to sleep, then none of these strategies are going work.

What I’m gonna talk through today is the foundation of my Sleep E-Coaching™ programs: independent sleep for your baby (4 months+).

How Daycare Teachers Can Help Naps

STEP 1: NAPTIME ROUTINES

So now that you maybe have your feet wet at daycare or your child’s been there for a while and you’ve maybe recently done a sleep training program here’s what we need to ask the teachers.

I want you to ask them if they can they do a naptime routine for your child.

A naptime routine is a great way to just cue your baby that it’s time to go to sleep. Sometimes a nap routine looks like change the diapers, zip up the sleep sack, say night night.

There you go, naptime routine done!

I want you to make sure that your naptime routine that you do at home, ask them if they can just copy and paste it and do it at daycare. A naptime routine is not 30 minutes, so they probably could take two to five minutes to just cue your baby up for a nap.

So always ask them.

This kind of relates to that first video, right, when I set you up with all those things to ask to make sure we can have a good setup!

What we’re aiming for is that the child will be cued, “Oh yes, I recognize this. This is the same cues I get at home. It’s time to go to sleep here just like it is at home.”

So they go get into their crib and they put themselves to sleep within five or 10 minutes.

STEP 2: DON’T RUSH!

Once the child falls asleep for nap it’s common that the baby wake up 15, 20, 30 minutes later.

The baby is actually just getting one sleep cycle, and may want more!

It would be nice if they get a few more sleep cycles in so be sure to tell the teachers:  “If my baby wakes after a short nap, can you not rush right over?”

If the teacher can give just a few minutes before going over, you may find they fall back asleep! Usually if the baby’s crying, they’re going to go ahead and get them up. I understand that! It’s a room full of babies. If we can minimize the crying, the better, right?

I’m just wondering if we can just wait a few minutes.

If maybe your baby wakes up, sits up, looks around the room, sees other kids playing, and they’re like, “Oh, yup, I’m done here. “I’m ready to go play with my friends.” Okay, let’s get them up and go ahead and move on with our day.

But sometimes the baby may just wake up, look around, decide, “All right, I wanna go back to sleep,” and then go back. So I would ask them to do the naptime routine. Once the baby goes to sleep, should they wake up early, can you just wait a few minutes before you go get them?

That can be helpful too!

See if the baby wants to decide to go back to sleep or not. If they do decide to go back to sleep, great! We will add this extra sleep inside of our nap time.

STEP 3: GET ACCURATE READS ON NAPS

It may seems like something we don’t have to double check, but let’s make sure that your daycare provider is giving you accurate reads on how long the baby is sleeping.

Sometimes this is maybe more towards the older ages, but I definitely have seen situations where a daycare teacher might write two hours where it was really like an hour and a half or it was just two hours for the room, but your child only napped for 45 minutes.

It’s important to gauge how long your child is sleeping so we can plan the rest of the afternoon or evening.

Again, I am so thankful we have amazing daycare teachers. This is not a knock on that at all. I would just ask, especially if you’re sleep training during this time, to make sure we get an accurate reading on how long your child is actually napping at daycare.

Maybe you are at a daycare provider where they have cameras where you can watch and things like that, which is pretty cool! Don’t take time off of your work to track and be obsessed with your baby’s sleep. That’s why we have loving daycare teachers, but it is just nice to know an accurate reading of how much sleep they had so we can possibly move into an early bedtime, which is a video coming up this week.

Conclusion

Now, short naps at daycare, they are going to happen. We can’t completely erase them from ever occurring because it’s bright and loud.

They’re going to probably just sleep one sleep cycle, wake up, and be done with it.

But if your daycare teacher can implement a naptime routine, if they can allow the child to fall asleep independently just like you’ve worked on at home, if they can just hold off and not rush over to pick up your child and if they can accurately write down how much sleep your child is getting, this will help so much.

It can help cue your child that there’s no immediate gratification so I’m gonna go back to sleep now, and it can help you understand at the end of the day, wow, look at this day of only 20-minute naps.

We need to go ahead and move into an early bedtime. So this is just going to be such great information and great strategies that connect your home life to the daycare life, which is really wonderful because all of these should work in sync together. And if we can see that success, it will mean so much to you and your family.

Now, get ready, tomorrow’s video, I’m going to equip you with what’s next!

If they’ve only had a day full of 20 or 30-minute naps, what do we do for bedtime? It’s too long, it’s too much of a stretch, and there’s no way I can get my kid to bed at 5:30. Relax. I’ll get you there.

We’ll cover it in tomorrow’s video. Sweet dreams. See you tomorrow!

Why Baby Doesn’t Nap Well At Day Care & How To Help

sleep

Paulo Sousa / EyeEm/Getty Images

Here’s why your baby’s fighting sleep.

May 7, 2022

Getting babies to nap is hard. Once you get them on a routine — a hard-won achievement — even the slightest change can make a baby fussy and you may have to start the process all over again. If your baby’s not napping at day care, it’s quite possibly because the transition from being home to spending time at a care center has disrupted their normal pattern. This new trend of skipping nap time can trickle, creating a domino effect on the family’s routine, too.

“It is very common to hear that naps at day care are shorter and not as great compared to naps at home for infants,” says Erica Threet, certified pediatric sleep consultant. She tells Romper that babies who skip nap time come home overtired, which in turn makes bedtime harder for them and their parents.

Parents are not alone in finding solutions, however. Your child care provider is a part of your village now, and by working together, you can come up with a plan that will help your baby through this period of adjustment.

Why are naps harder at day care?

The short and sweet answer is day care is not your baby’s familiar and comfortable home. The noise level and sounds are different, there are other babies and more adults around, the dimensions of the rooms and the amount of light are different. With all of this change to adjust to, babies may understandably need time to adapt and feel comfortable enough to rest and reach their REM sleep.

Not only is the environment different, but so is the day care routine. “Having the proper amount of wake time is key for falling asleep and taking a long nap,” Threet says.

Day care providers may not have magic solutions, however. “Babies up to 12 months are on their own sleep schedule,” says Lucinda Hightower, a licensed child care provider and owner of, A Happy Place For Children, a children’s day care in Jacksonville, Florida. She says her caregivers let the baby take the lead. “When I notice they are sleepy, I put them down in the beds and rub their backs.”

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How parents can help babies nap at day care

Expect a brief period of transition when your baby starts day care, says Hightower. “We usually go by the parent’s routine sleep schedule if they already have one,” she says. If they don’t, she says the adjustment period usually takes about a week. Beyond then, you may need to ask questions about the caregiver’s routine and maybe offer ideas specific to what helps your baby have a sound nap.

How do the caregivers run through the schedule in your baby’s class? If anything stands out as something that you recognize can impact their naps — maybe the snack time is before playtime, for example, and at home, you have done the opposite — ask them why. Depending on the answer, you may want to offer suggestions for what works for your baby or adjust your own baby’s schedule at home in response. Other avenues to explore:

• Ask about how the caregivers respond when baby fusses at nap time. If your baby is being picked up at the first sign of disturbance or kept awake after rousing, ask your day care to allow your baby a few minutes to try to self-soothe and fall back asleep, says Threet.
• Send something from home to provide a sense of familiarity or comfort. If your baby uses a sleep sack or likes a particular snuggle toy, ask your provider if it can be used during nap time.
• Location may make a difference. “See if there is a corner or a quieter place for the baby to nap,” Threet says.

With sleep issues, remember that babies thrive on consistency and go through natural sleep regressions during their early years. Give these suggestions a try, and hopefully this no-napping phase will soon pass.

Sources interviewed:

Erica Threet, pediatric sleep consultant for Sleep Wise Consulting

Lucinda Hightower, licensed childcare provider, owner of A Happy Place For Children

Is it useful for adults to sleep during the day? How much and how? Here’s what scientists say

Due to lack of sleep, it can be difficult to concentrate on work: it seems that if you sleep for at least half an hour, strength and vigor will return. Scientists agree that naps can actually increase productivity, but you need to sleep for a limited amount of time and at the right hours. We figure out how to take a nap during the day for the benefit of the body.

Benefits of daytime sleep

Studies show that after a short daytime nap, it is easier for a person to concentrate. It also has a positive effect on physical performance. For example, athletes after a daytime sleep improve their reaction, they become stronger and more resilient. And people who sleep once or twice a week during the day are less likely to have cardiovascular disease.

How much sleep do you need

Researchers from NASA have identified the ideal duration of daytime sleep – 26 minutes. That’s how long long-haul pilots dozed to keep their focus and efficiency.

On average, scientists recommend sleeping no more than half an hour. In such a short time, the body will not have time to plunge into a deep phase of sleep, from which it is more difficult to wake up. If the daytime sleep lasts an hour or two, you can, on the contrary, get up tired and overwhelmed.

Doctors advise to sleep after dinner, but most importantly – until 16:00. Later, it gets dark, and the body begins to produce melatonin, the sleep hormone. If you fall asleep in the evening, you will not only not rest, but you can also break the regime. The melatonin produced will go to the evening sleep, and it will be difficult to fall asleep at night.

How to sleep properly

You need to sleep during the day in the same way as at night: in a cool, quiet and dark room. Blackout curtains, a sleep mask and earplugs will help create such conditions.

If you work from home, relax in the bedroom. Office workers can find a secluded place, for example, a recreation area, where no one will disturb. Or use a sleep capsule – these are available in the offices of leading companies.

It is important not to forget about the alarm clock. As soon as it works, try to get up immediately. Otherwise, you run the risk of oversleeping and not resting.

The effects of daytime sleep are not fully understood. If you are not sure if it will be useful for you, try keeping a sleep diary. Record your level of fatigue and sleepiness before and after your nap, as well as the length of your sleep and the time you fall asleep. If you see a positive trend and you feel cheerful after a nap, then it is right for you.

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Is napping good for health?

Discussed the advantages and disadvantages of daytime sleep for an adult

…is napping helpful or does it disrupt a healthy sleep-wake sequence?

At the moment there are many studies of daytime sleep, but scientists still cannot agree on whether daytime sleep is good or bad for an adult.

According to some studies, the duration of daytime sleep affects the cognitive functions of people. So, for example, one work showed that a short dream for 10 minutes. improves performance, and the other is that a short rest helps memory work better. In general, a dream lasting up to 30 minutes. increases endurance, has an invigorating effect, while a longer one provokes sleep inertia. And that, in turn, leads to a decrease in vigilance and performance for an average of 30 minutes. after waking up from a nap, and also slows down the speed of performing cognitive tasks. But even here, the researchers point out that not all cognitive functions are equally sensitive to it, and the duration of sleep can be related to it rather indirectly.

People may take a nap during the day for many reasons, such as to compensate for a lack of nighttime sleep and to restore energy. And older people may take more non-night naps due to age-related changes that may be partly due to lifestyle changes – many of them spend less time on work, physical and social activity, so they have more opportunities to sleep during the day. However, it is important to understand that many of these studies have assessed participants’ sleep based on their own subjective reports, which are not a reliable source of information.

Researchers in China have been doing research on daytime sleep and aging and found that those who had more than 60 minutes of naps during the day were less likely to successfully age. They defined it as low incidence of disease, no disability due to illness, high cognitive functioning and physical performance, and active involvement in daily life. Also, experts have found a link between long daytime sleep and cardiovascular diseases, diabetes and metabolic syndrome.

Sleep and cognitive impairments are common in the elderly. And in a recent study, experts concluded that excessive daytime sleep and Alzheimer’s could potentially be linked. The former increases the risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease in older people. At the same time, the progression of dementia in Alzheimer’s increases the annual duration and frequency of daytime sleep.