Forcing my child to sleep?

An afternoon nap is a healthy choice for everyone. Yes, even us adults would benefit from 40 min to an hour to help us be fully cognitive for the rest of the day. The only time our body heals (rest and repair) is when we sleep. Judy, as usual, hit the nail on the head. A child that stays up to 11 is an over tire child and good bedtime parenting will result in the child going to bed and sleep on time.
A few of my daycare kids I know could easily sleep 3 or more hours in the afternoon due to being up till late evening due to family sports and other activities. My nap time is 12:30 - 3:00. I often do have to wake the children up.
That said, I agree with Kelly P, find another daycare that will suit your nap opinion or work with your provider and let your child rest at daycare.

I wanted to add it doesn't seem by the info the op gave that the provider is forcing the child to sleep it seems that he's tired. However I do wake children by 315. Time to have a chat with your provider and ask her to wake him after 2.5 hours or fond a new provider that is a better fit for you.

I worked in centre care for years and it is part of ministry (Day Nurseries Act)regulations that children rest on their beds for a minimum of 1 hour. I use these guidelines (because they are there for a reason!) in my home childcare as well. After an hour, if the children are awake then they may come up and do a quiet activity or watch a movie but the children are NEVER awake. Because 1) They're little and kids need more sleep than we do and 2) I keep them so busy that they are tired! You can't force a child to sleep if they are not tired. My little man is 3yrs old and naps for 2 hrs per day (I wake them at 3 if they are not already awake) and he goes to bed again by 8 at the latest each night, tuckered out because I keep them busy all evening as well :)

Yep, I'm with all the other providers. Kids that age need sleep...period. I've been in daycare for 20 yrs, including my college placements. I've yet to meet a child in this age bracket who doesn't require a nap in the afternoons. I never force children to sleep either, but they must lay quietly and relax. They ALWAYS fall asleep. I've had different parents demand that I stop naps because the child won't go down at night properly. I've tried to cater to that in the past. Never again! The child was miserable....so tired, unable to cope, ultra sensitive. It was dreadful. Basically, the issues surrounding bedtime at home are not my concern. As Judy said earlier, over tiredness is often a reason kids don't sleep well at night. There are a number of different factors that could come into play including who is putting the child to bed. Here at daycare, my kids always go down easily and are asleep within minutes....and this includes numerous overnights I've done for clients. Totally different story at home with Mom and Dad! This is not a sleep issue....it's a pushing boundaries issue. The child still needs sleep. In fact, we were taught in ECE training that REGARDLESS of what the parents want, the child is always to be afforded the opportunity to sleep. There was no room for compromise according to my professors.

And you know...at the risk of sounding completely selfish....as much as I love all the little darlings, 12 hours is a very long day. Really, if it's not too much to ask, I kinda need a little break or I'm going to be rocking in the corner singing nursery rhymes to myself by the end of the week.....just sayin'.

:huh:

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Originally Posted by cfred

And you know...at the risk of sounding completely selfish....as much as I love all the little darlings, 12 hours is a very long day. Really, if it's not too much to ask, I kinda need a little break or I'm going to be rocking in the corner singing nursery rhymes to myself by the end of the week.....just sayin'.

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I totally agree with your comment and I could not stop laughing. I think I would be like that in no more than 2 days:woot:

if your child is falling asleep that means your child needs sleep. I don't mean to be a drag but I'm so tired of hearing parents tell us that we can't give naps to their kids and the number one reason is because you as a parent don't want to deal with them. Because let me tell you, I look foward to nap time, I need time to recollect myself maybe even go to the bathroom or eat my lunch. The other day I ate lunch 2pm.

I have a situation in my daycare right now where the little 1 year old is getting up before the sun every morning. Then he started sleeping longer at naptime because he's exhausted. The little boy's Mom is getting tired! So we're working together to find a solution. THAT'S YOUR ANSWER. For heaven sake, make sure you have good communication and trust and mutual respect with your daycare provider so that you can work together to solve any problem.

Whether it is toilet training, sleep, food requests, discipline & behaviour issues or any of the other facets of our jobs that involve helping you raise your children, it is VITAL that parents and caregiver understand each other and work together. I'm willing to go the extra mile within my policy limits as long as my client families are working with me and I know they wouldn't push their limits or ask me to do anything unreasonable. For instance, I agree with the posters who pointed out that I work long days and that break time in the middle of the day is important to me. I still have a lot of work to do after the children to home with their parents. Long days!

I had a parent that had the same request of her 2 1/2 year old, I complied and that child became extremely aggressive and grumpy due to not napping. If she fell asleep due to exhaustion I refused to wake her up. The Mom was always angry with me all she cared about was having her personal time at night. Everyday I had to deal with an over tired grumpy child.

When you get woken up out of a sound sleep think about how it makes you personally feel. Usually it makes you feel more exhausted and lethargic. For a growing child they need there sleep in order to grow.

My other question to you is why are you having a hard time keeping him in bed? I went through a phase like that with my toddler too. I had to redirect her back to bed for two nights straight, she got the message!

With my ds here's what we do: (He has quiet time here too)

His bed time is between 8 and 8:30 every night.

At 7:30 we get him to brush his teeth, wash up (bath depending on the day)
He then gets a light snack, yogurt, crackers, a digestive cookie, or toast
We fill up his water bottle
He goes pee
We read him a story
turn on his night light and glow turtle, cover him up, turn off the lights and say goodnight

Within ten mins he is asleep, and wakes up at 7:15-7:30 each morning. and he is almost 5.

I got a good one. I had a mom who told me not to nap her 3 yr old anymore because the dcg didn't want to go to sleep at night. The problem was that dcg was so tired she was fall asleep on the floor. So for one week I kept her up. I then find out that on the weekend the parents couldn't deal with her so they let her take a nap. Now what I didn't get was, why I couldn't let her nap but they could. So from that day on, I let her nap and just let mom think she didn't nap.