Quiet time - suggestions?

just some extra encouragement. My "nap nazi" is 3 and came to me not having had a nap in over a yr. He resisted so much, I'm talking threw his cot, crying etc. Now he says "it's nap time? And runs and gets his books for his cot.

So I need a bit more help...

I'm not sure if it was just an off day (one of the kids was sent home after his told told me he had pinworms and I'd cleaned most of the morning while they had free-play/TV, no outside time), but my 3 year old boys were terrors at nap, ended up waking the babies up after an hour and I couldn't get them back down.

Last week I stayed upstairs (where the bedrooms are) with the video monitor and kept an eye on them that way. I can talk through that do I did so when I needed to. Yesterday the boys were getting out of their beds, making loud noises, banging on the walls, and talking/playing with each other. I started talking through the monitor again, moved right outside their door and opened it to talk to them, and ended up in their room at one point, it was when I left that they woke up the little ones and everything fell apart. They seemed to think of it as a game so I'm trying to nip it in the bud - any suggestions?

Just to note, they didn't escape quiet time after this. Though I did separate them and we talked about it later. One of the kids cried all afternoon so I was able to use it to tell them that the baby is sad and upset because he was woken up from nap and he's tired. We'll see how it goes today...

Plan something they like for after nap and they only get to do it if they stay put and rest quietly or you won't have time to get it ready if you have to "deal" with them. Then let the others that did nap do it. If you have mostly babies it could also be to do a baby activity and make the boys sit or lay on mats nearby while babies play since they took their nap already and the big kids didn't.

Thank you!

I'll definitely try that... Tomorrow lol.

I put one of the boys in the room early while the other finished lunch and when he went to go have [what he thought would be] "play time" with his buddy, I caught him sneaking looks at me and smiling like he was up to something. I still had some cleaning in the basement to do and was not up for the fight so I just kept them separate. And guess what? Silence and sleep for 4/5 kids... More training tomorrow I suppose!