Is Your Toddler Not Sleeping at Nursery?

 

Miserable Toddler

I attend baby shows throughout the UK promoting the skill of sleep for young children. I am approached by parents all the time asking various questions. Recently I was approached by Catherine, she asked:

“My 11-month-old toddler not sleeping at nursery. He is there three times a week and is really miserable by the time I collect him at six o’clock. Should I just put him down early or should I wait for his normal bedtime?”

Well, I have got three tips for that.

Tip 1.

First, find out why he’s not sleeping well at nursery. I find that a lot of people just bury their heads in the sand around nurseries or daycares and hope for the best. What I tell everyone to do when you’re interviewing is find out what they do around naptime.

Are things scheduled? Do they have a quiet place to sleep? Or is it just, “Oh, if they fall asleep in the pram, fine,” and just going like that? You really need to investigate a little bit and find out if the situation is conducive to what you’ve created at home. 

Tip 2.

Find out how they actually get your baby to fall asleep. Some nurseries are great and they’ll do whatever you tell them to do which, in my opinion, should be the way it is. You’re the boss here. You are the parent. You are paying the bill. They should be able to do what you want them to do.

If you come in really clear and say, “Listen, I put this baby down, awake, and he falls asleep on his own. All he needs is a quiet environment and a cot of his own and he’ll do great,” why wouldn’t they want that? That makes their job that much easier.

But some nurseries, for whatever reason, have certain policies in place where they don’t do that. They wrap the babies or the stroller ride them until they fall asleep and then transfer them.

You need to find out what’s going on to get your baby to sleep in the first place. If it’s the total opposite of what you’ve worked really hard to create, you need to keep looking. Absolutely.

Tip 3.

Some babies, they just don’t sleep as well when they’re out or at nursery or whatever the situation is. None of us do, really. We all sleep better in our own beds, so that makes sense to me.

If you find that they do what you ask and they try really hard and he doesn’t quite sleep as well, if he’s grumpy by six o’clock, then absolutely put him down early. I always say there is no reason why you need to live with a grumpy, tired child to hang on to some magical bedtime that you’ve created in your mind. Six o’clock, you can have him, do the routine. Get him down through 6:30, and that would be fine.

Because he’s not going to the nursery every day, then on the days he’s home with you and sleeping great, it’s no problem to hang on to your normal bedtime. We do want the body clock to get in line with a consistent bedtime, but there is wiggle room around that. It’s not set in stone.

Your Child’s Environment – Bedroom vs Playroom

 

Now this is a difficult one. It would be interesting to do a survey of children’s bedrooms up and down the country to see how many are stuffed from floor to ceiling with playthings, personal things and discarded clothing. I bet it is difficult to identify what furniture there is in some rooms because everything will be hidden under the detritus of day-to-day kids’ existence. While it can be hard to prevent this kind of situation, unless a parent is in there tidying up on an hourly basis, it is not a good thing at all. Let’s look into Bedroom Vs Playroom.

Playroom can Equal Mental Stimulation at Bed Time

There is a fine balance to be achieved here because, on the one hand, you don’t want to stimulate a child’s mind too much when it is bedtime. On the other hand, you don’t want their room to be TOO bland and impersonal. Often a child will get into bed and be told to go to sleep, and will actually pretend to do so. But then the eyes flick open and settle on the nearest gadget, drawing book or plaything and the temptation is too great. If they can get away with it, it’s playtime = Bedroom vs Playroom.

Striking the Balance Right

So how do you prevent this from happening? Ideally you should have a situation where the bedroom is purely for sleeping and all the toys and clutter are in a separate room – maybe an adjoining one, maybe somewhere else altogether. But how practical is this for most people, particularly where there are several kids in the house? The average household will have just enough rooms for everyone’s daily needs with no spare capacity – not even a large cupboard.

It would be perfect to have a room with fairly neutral décor and virtually no mind stimulation at all for your child to sleep in, but this is hard to achieve. Let’s face it even the wallpaper found on many walls is a stimulus in itself, whether it is a boy’s or a girl’s bedroom. I suppose the worst culprit for mind stimulation is the widespread use of electronic gadgetry for children. There is nothing wrong with this, as such, but you don’t want them frantically trying to get to the next level of their strategy game at bedtime. Equally watching television programs or their favorite DVD should be discouraged late at night.

What do you do?

Bedroom vs Playroom = Get the right balance. You can try covering things up but covers are easily removed. You can strip the room of all sources of entertainment and remove every plaything but this would more than likely provoke a storm of protest from the affronted kid. I suppose the answer lies in some kind of compromise. Psychology comes into play in most situations with children and you have to find a way of letting the child think they have won, when really they haven’t. Achieving some sort of order in the room will help but a lot of give and take on both sides, with the child doing more of the giving, is really the only way to encourage them to go to sleep at those times when they would rather play for a bit longer.

What does your children’s bedroom look like? Are you able to distinguish between Bedroom and Playroom? I love to hear from you, the information you share will benefit other parents.