What's you nap time policy?

[treeholm]

My parents know that if their child outgrows a nap, they have outgrown my daycare. All children are in bed, in separate rooms, for two hours. If they are tired, they will sleep. If they don't sleep, they can sing to themselves etc., but I won't keep a child awake. They all sleep...

[Fun&care]

I've had issues with my daughter no longer needing a nap otherwise taking forever to fall asleep at night so I sympathize with the parents. What I do with my dd is she still has to go to bed for the first hour of naptime and after that she can stay up and watch TV for the remainder. If she falls asleep, I STILL wake her after an hour otherwise it will mess with her routine again. I haven't done this with any other dck yet but I would offer it to parents whose child can't settle at night with the conditions that the child must remain quiet and that I will ONLY let them watch TV and nothing else, so special activities etc. because after all it IS my break time. If you find that she is cranky it could be because she hasn't settled into the new routine yet but at 3 my belief is that many, not all, but many can ditch the nap.

[DaycareMiss]

This is the first time I've ever been asked to cut out the nap time in 5 years. Maybe I just need to develop a spine & tell them that, take it or leave it. Sigh, this stresses me out. I don't like confrontation, it's outside my comfort zone

[AmandaKDT]

My policy is that everyone must have quiet time and lay down. If they are not asleep after 30 minutes I might let an older child get up and then they can watch cartoons until quiet time is over. I have two almost 4 year olds, when they started with me in the spring both parents asked for no nap or a very short nap but at the same time agreed to my quiet time policy. Both of them still fall asleep within 10 minutes everyday and any issues with getting them to sleep at night were resolved long ago. I leave them for atleast an hour and any issues sleeping at home were resolved by their parents and as far as I know they are no longer an issue. There is no way that I would keep kids awake when they really should be having a nap.

So my answer is, they all go for quiet time and if they fall asleep then they obviously need it. I am not going to deny them something they need and deal with grumpy kids just so they will go to bed early when they get home.