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What to do about naps when your baby is in childcare?

Dr Pamela Douglas22nd of Aug 202321st of May 2024

brown skinned baby sleeping peacefully

Usually the staff in daycare centres or the people caring for your baby are keen to support you, and to fit in with your family's needs.

However, daycare staff, nannies, family daycare providers, babysitters, grandparents or the others who help you look after your little one might believe that the best thing they can do for your baby and your family is to make sure your baby has long blocks of sleep during the day.

As a result, depending on how much time your little one spends with his carers, your baby's body clock settings might become disrupted after a few weeks, resulting in excessive night waking for you and your family. Long blocks of sleep during the day might also result in unmanageably late bed-times in the evening. You can find out about this here.

You could take a laid back, wait-and-see approach, allowing your little one to fit in with the running of the daycare centre or the carer's own style to see what happens. However, if you find problems emerging, you'll need to have a conversation about your family's needs.

Often parents who use The Possums Sleep Program speak with the carers in advance, explaining that their baby is accustomed to napping only when the sleep pressure is high, in the midst of daylight, noise and activity. Some daycare settings still use blinds to make the room dark when the little ones are sleeping. I generally say to parents that it may be too much to ask that the sleeping room isn't dimmed, since the carers are trying to manage larger groups of infants, according to their own policies.

But it's not too much to ask the carers to wake your baby so that she isn't sleeping for longer in total than she does during the days when she's with you. I suppose you might call this capping the nap! Limiting the length of your little one's daytime naps when he spends time with carers can be a very important strategy for protecting your family's sleep health, over time.

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Next up in FAQs

What to do when you need baby to sleep so that you can get your paid work done?

Baby sleeps in sling against mother while she works on her laptop

Are you trying to deliver on paid work (perhaps in front of your computer or laptop) throughout the week, with little support during the day as you care for your baby? Or maybe you're running a small business? You might be very much hoping that you can get your baby into a regular sleep routine, with long blocks of sleep at naptimes, so that you have predictable free time each day to do your paying work. You might feed your baby back to sleep when she wakes, to lengthen the time you've got available.

Being inside the house typically dials babies up. Perhaps you're watching the clock and feeling under pressure to get work done, so you try putting your baby down in the cot as soon as he is dialling up, or immediately...

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