Childcarers are magicians, I’m sure of it. There’s no other explanation for how they have managed to get my two daughters to sleep during the day when I’ve consistently failed.
It’s always amazed me, on the occasions when I’ve collected my daughters from nursery during nap time, to see rows of children snoozing contentedly. How do the staff manage to get so many children to sleep at one time? Is there really no secret sleep potion?
From when my first daughter was around one year old, her dad and I had problems getting her to have a daytime nap. We’d rock her, push her in her pram, drive her, plead with her – and it felt a great achievement if we gained 45 minutes of sleep as a result. Her childminder had no such problems. I thought there must be some special trick that she used and was bemused to hear that she would just tell her it was time to sleep and she would settle in her cot without demur.
It was when she started nursery at two years old that the sleep spell finally lifted. She’d lie down with all the other children but resolutely play with her feet instead of having a nap. Her key worker and I felt that she just didn’t need the sleep, so we decided that she may as well have quiet play and stories with the older children while her peers napped.
Thankfully, my second daughter was a much better daytime sleeper, but even she started to refuse to have a sleep at home long before she stopped having one at nursery. Again, her key worker said that she would simply follow the other children, lie down and go to sleep. That worked like magic until she recently moved up into the pre-school room at three years old (see last month’s Working Mum) and announced that she was a ‘big girl’ and no longer wanted to sleep during the day. I thought differently. She’d be very tired and grumpy after a busy day at nursery and I felt that she needed the chance to recharge in the middle of the day.
MISSING OUT
I spoke to her key worker and she agreed that it was best to encourage her to at least lie down with the other children at nap time. This worked for a few weeks but my daughter told me a few times that she ‘never ever wanted a sleep ever again’. I tried to find out why she was unhappy to sleep, and think it was because she felt she was missing out on playing.
It all came to a head when her key worker took me to one side at pick-up time and told me that my daughter had thrown herself on the floor and had a tantrum when the other children were preparing to sleep. Staff tried soothing and rocking her, but she cried and shouted that she did not want to sleep – before falling asleep with exhaustion. It was the second time this had happened that week and she was waking up the others.
I wish we could have waved a magic wand and got her to sleep for another couple of months, but we decided that it wasn’t fair to force her to sleep, and also unfair for the children she was disturbing. Her key worker said that she would give her the option of sleep, especially on a Wednesday in order to break up the week, but not take her through to the sleep room if she didn’t want to go. My daughter was ecstatic when I told her.
What I didn’t expect was for the staff to work their magic on her again. A few weeks later we were driving to nursery when she told me that she was going to have a sleep that day. Giving her autonomy obviously worked a trick. She napped, and has done a few times since – but never at home.
A WORD OF ADVICE
Getting children to sleep and rest at regular times in the nursery is a source of amazement for some parents, but there is no magic formula, explains policy and standards manager for the Pre-school Learning Alliance, Melanie Pilcher
The question of sleep, how much, when and where can become a real issue for parents whose children are tired and ‘grumpy’ but refuse to go to sleep.
Practitioners have a role to play in reassuring parents that sleep patterns change with shifting routines and events in a child’s life and that children have very individual needs when it comes to rest and sleep times during the day.
Practitioners must reassure parents that:
- consistent routines help children to establish patterns of behaviour – the same routines can be encouraged at home during the day; for example, a quiet time after lunch for a story or relaxing music
- on some days and in some situations, a child will not need to sleep but will still ‘recharge’ if they are given the opportunity to rest
- sleep should not become an ‘issue’. A child who is exhausted is unlikely to give in to the sleep that they need if there is tension – even adults know that the harder you try to fall asleep, the less likely it is to happen, so having somebody tell you that you must ‘lie down and go to sleep’ is unlikely to achieve the desired outcome.
- as practitioners, you will always defer to parents’ wishes while ensuring that their child’s needs are being met. If a parent requests that their child ‘have a sleep today’, you will provide them with the opportunity to do so – rather than promising them that it will happen.
- ultimately children are good at self-regulating when it comes to their need for sleep and/or rest provided that we offer a safe, comfortable and consistent environment in which they can do so.
