A lot of parents get anxious about sleep when it’s time to start daycare. After, napping at daycare is not the same as napping at home. It’s a big change, but you can help make the transition easier for your child by following these simple steps:
Start Early
Give your child plenty of opportunity to practice self-soothing at home so that he or she will be able to nap at daycare. If your child isn’t capable of self-soothing, your daycare provider may end up starting new, unhelpful sleep associations that could be a challenge for you to undo at home. Or you may just have an extremely overtired little one at pick-up time!
Allow For Healthy Attachments
- Take time to get your child attached to a lovey before starting daycare. Send the lovey with your child to daycare each day.
- If your child is used to sleeping with a sound machine, get a small, portable one and send it with your child each day.
Coordinate with Your Daycare Provider
- Share your sleep-wake schedule with your daycare provider and ask that your provider stick to your child’s schedule.
- Provide a morning “sleep” report to your provider to let them know how your child slept the night before. If your little one didn’t sleep well the night before, let them know that an early morning nap is needed. When you pick up at the end of the day, make certain you get a detailed report on how naps went throughout the day.
- Use your end of the day napping report, in addition to your child’s temperament and behavior at pick-up time, to determine if an early bedtime is needed on daycare days.
Compensate for Poor Napping at Daycare
If you know your child gets less sleep on daycare days, make up for that sleep deficit on weekends. If your child is only getting one nap per day at daycare, you may need two naps per day and/or an earlier bedtime on weekends.