Quiet time - suggestions?

Hi there everyone!

So I've been reading that some of you have quiet time for all your children even if they no longer nap, and I'm wondering how you do it...

Do you have separate bedrooms for all of the kids? Do you have some sharing? Which age groups mix the best?

I have 3 3 year olds, one naps (usually the longest of my mappers), and 2 under 2. The 2 older ones who don't nap are starting to need breaks from each other, and I'm starting to need a break from both of them. I just have a feeling that if I were to have them have quiet time together, they'd just play, and I really think that they both need some downtime, even if they aren't napping. I'm tempted to put the 2 under 2 down together, as they normally nap for similar lengths of time, but I know if one got up early the other would too.

I have also been going in whenever one of them wakes up (rather than having a set nap time and everyone stays in their room for that long), I'm not sure if that was a rookie mistake or not.

Any suggestions on how to go about starting a routine quiet time?

I have 6 kids, 5 sleep in the same room. Ages 5, 4, 3.5, 3 and 2. They stay quiet until I come get them. The 3 oldest for 2 hours and the 2 youngest for 3 hours. Yup, rookie mistake ;)

You will have to take the time to teach them to be quiet and lay still. My oldest know they don't have to nap but have to stay quiet.

Yep, mistake. You can put them all in one room and expect them to be QUIET and not play. It will require some re-training on your part and you will have to sit in the room or near the room to put a stop to any nonsense for a bit until they learn that quiet time is QUIET time.

I have five kids between 15 mths and 3 years old and they ALL sleep in the same room for the duration of naptime with NO fooling around.

Children nap at my daycare all in the same room right up until the time they leave for school, so the oldest napper I've had was 4 1/2 years old. The older children sometimes lay there for a while playing with a cuddle in the darkened room with the younger children and fall asleep for the last hour or so but they know my rule. They need to rest.

I find to help with them not being noisy is to stagger the times you put them down by 10-15 minutes. My 2 amazing nappers get put down 1st as they have no problem falling asleep in the same room. Then 15 minutes later my worst napper who loves to chat at quite time, but if everyone else is asleep then they have no one to engage and will eventually fall asleep.

I have 2 others that have to lie down but they get to watch t.v or pick a movie!

I started my daycare with staggered start dates which I think was a huge help. My "vetern" dcb has become my nap nazi as he knows the drill and tells the other kids to be quiet. I also use my monitor which I can talk to them on if they start chatting and I tell them to be quiet.


I have all my dck sleeping in one room and my girls sleep in their own rooms

I have three 3 year olds - one that easily naps, one that fights it but will fall asleep and one that doesn't nap (which happens to be my own daughter). I have the space to have them in different spots around the house, but they all have their little beds and they all pick out books to take with them to look at while in 'quiet time'. I turn on soft lullaby music and they know they need to stay on their beds until I tell them quiet time is done. If they don't fall asleep they can go watch some cartoons after atleast 20 minutes of book reading (which usually only my daughter does at this point since she is the only one not sleeping). If the others 3 year olds wake up before quiet time is over I let them go watch cartoons too.

Quiet time isn't an option here, everyone needs a rest (including me). The one who fights the nap time has started to come around and she is much more willing to get settled down, it took almost 2 weeks before I think she got that nap time wasn't optional.

They also understand that nap time is in their beds, no talking and no getting up until I get them.

ditto what everyone else said. Naptime here is for a minimum of 2 hours...usually 2.5 hours. Nobody gets up before the 2 hours (except my daughter, but when she gets up we have our special time together cuddling). If they wake up early, they learn to stay quietly in thier beds until I come and get them. It takes training each one in the beginning, but they learn. It will be harder for you as you have trained them to cry and you will get them or to not sleep at all...but I think it will be worth the training to get some peace!

Wow! Thank you everyone for all the responses!

I'm over the moon now thinking that this is going to be doable!

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!