Many of my clients are in a situation where they have to go back to work after a few short months of giving birth which just downright sucks for many parents! And then on top of that needing to find a daycare that meets all the needs of the family and a child can feel overwhelming. One of the biggest sources of frustration I hear is that the child is not napping well at daycare, which ultimately impacts their sleep at night and can affects the child’s ability to learn and grow and absorb all that is going on around them. So, I want to give you a few tips on things to look out for when choosing a daycare or care-giving situation for your family.
How to Choose a Daycare for Your Child’s Quality Sleep
Tip number one would be to first find out why he’s not sleeping well at daycare. I find that a lot of people just bury their head in the sand around daycare and hope for the best. What I tell everyone to do when you’re interviewing is find out what the daycare does around naptime.
Are things scheduled? Do they have a quiet place to sleep? Or is it just, “Oh, if they fall asleep in the stroller, fine,” and just going like that? You really need to investigate a little bit and find out if the situation is conducive to what you’ve created at home.
The second tip would be to find out how they actually get your baby to fall asleep. Some daycares are great and they’ll do whatever you tell them to do which, in my opinion, should be the way it is. You’re the boss here. You are the parent. You are paying the bill. They should be able to do what you want them to do.
If you come in really clear and say, “Listen, I put this baby down, awake, and he falls asleep on his own. All he needs is a quiet environment and a crib of his own and he’ll do great,” why wouldn’t they want that? That makes their job that much easier.
But some daycares, for whatever reason, have certain policies in place where they don’t do that. They wrap the babies or they stroller ride them until they fall asleep and then transfer them.
You need to find out what’s going on at the daycare and see if it can mesh with what you’ve worked really hard to create. If not, you need to keep looking. Absolutely.
Tip number three around this is, for some babies, they just don’t sleep as well when they’re out or at daycare or whatever the situation is. None of us do, really. We all sleep better in our own beds, so that makes sense to me.
If you find that they do what you ask and they try really hard and he doesn’t quite sleep as well, if he’s grumpy by six o’clock, then absolutely put him down early. I always say there is no reason why you need to live with a grumpy, tired child to hang on to some magical bedtime that you’ve created in your mind. Six o’clock, you can have him, do the routine. Get him down through 6:30, and that would be fine.
Because he’s not going to daycare every day, then on the days he’s home with you and sleeping great, it’s no problem to hang on to your normal bedtime. We do want the body clock to get in line with a consistent bedtime; but thankfully there is wiggle room around that. It’s not set in stone.
Call Adele Thompson Sleep Consultant
Maybe you don’t already have a sleep routine and you’d like to build one. I’m a certified sleep consultant and can help you create healthy sleep routine for your child. Schedule a consultation to get started.
