Naptime

[jen]

Crystal - you're right. having an assisant has nothing to do with ANYTHING because you HAVE to have an assistant with that many kids. there's nothing "lucky" about it. i'm pretty sure people who don't have their husband's help also have a second income from their husband doing another job away from home - that's so lucky!!

My hubby was my assistant while he was in school...it makes a HUGE difference. I have 12 kids so by law I didn't need one, but...when jr. has a blow out and you need to give him a quick bath, having hubby around to read a story or pass out snack is a huge!

Just using the bathroom myself was a billion times easier when dh was home with me. Not to mention getting tiny shoes on, managing the problem napper, or helping with clean up.

[QualiTcare]

My hubby was my assistant while he was in school...it makes a HUGE difference. I have 12 kids so by law I didn't need one, but...when jr. has a blow out and you need to give him a quick bath, having hubby around to read a story or pass out snack is a huge!

Just using the bathroom myself was a billion times easier when dh was home with me. Not to mention getting tiny shoes on, managing the problem napper, or helping with clean up.

it's different when two people are doing the job of one person. if you're keeping 12 kids alone and you're not required to have any help - i guess you're "lucky" if you have help - yes. if you have an assistant because you MUST have one, then there aren't two people doing the job of one person - there are two people doing equal work. when i worked in a center with 2 year olds, we had 14 children on a typical day (me and one other person) and seven 2 year olds to one person was not easy and i did not consider myself lucky to have "help." i considered myself maxed out because the law requires one person for 7 two year olds and that's just the law - not reccomended.

you made it seem as if she can't possibly understand how difficult naptime can be because she has an assistant. she has an assistant because she has more children and luck has nothing to do with it. that was the point.

[Daycare Mommy]

Agreeing with Jen here. Having an assistant, at naptime especially, makes a huge difference. If I have 7 kids or 14 kids how many are up at nap? If even one 2-year-old is up no matter how many there are total, without an assistant I'm severely limited in what work I can get done. If there is an assistant, one deals with the kid(s) that aren't sleeping and the other gets whatever work there is to be done so the afternoon can run smoothly.

And where I live if I kept over 8 kids I'd need an assistant, so despite Jen's being allowed to have 12 kids without an assistant, that's a 2 person job here. It doesn't get any easier by jumping state lines.

[Daycare Mommy]

I guess I was always taught in my daycare years never give up on a child, no matter what. Some children adjust to different things differently than other children. We once had a boy in child care who cried every day when he was dropped off for over 18 months. He was fine once the day went on but the the next day would start all over again.

I guess we look at situations where the kid is not adjusting differently. I don't think every child will necessarily do best under the type of care I provide no matter how hard I try. Some kids just like the structured, busy center care. Others are overwhelmed there and feel safer in a home environment. Some kids would do better in a one-on-one situation and basically need a nanny or babysitter instead. Just because mom likes the place and the caregivers love him and want him to be happy doesn't mean junior is served best by going there. From home care to home care and center to center there are tons of differences in how individuals run things that can make the difference in whether that dck is comfortable there or not. I don't think childcare is one size fits all, nor should it be. I'm not going to fight a square peg into a round hole. Sometimes they are better off being given notice rather than staying in a place that doesn't suit them 50 hours a week for their first 4 years of life.

[nannyde]

Agreeing with Jen here. Having an assistant, at naptime especially, makes a huge difference. If I have 7 kids or 14 kids how many are up at nap? If even one 2-year-old is up no matter how many there are total, without an assistant I'm severely limited in what work I can get done. If there is an assistant, one deals with the kid(s) that aren't sleeping and the other gets whatever work there is to be done so the afternoon can run smoothly.

And where I live if I kept over 8 kids I'd need an assistant, so despite Jen's being allowed to have 12 kids without an assistant, that's a 2 person job here. It doesn't get any easier by jumping state lines.

Yes but if you have an assistant that is not in business with you then you have to PAY that assistant for nap. It would cost me a fortune to pay a staff assistant for 2.5 hours a day to one to one a kid. It would mean that I would have all of the childs salary JUST for nap time. I wouldn't have any money left over to pay that child's portion of the business expenses or my salary.

Having an assistant does not change how expensive it is to have a kid up at nap. Time is money in day care just like every other business. I don't provide service to children who do not NEED a full afternoon nap. If a parent would want that service it would cost about 25 dollars per day on top of their fee. By the time they pay my fee plus the extra fee for nap they might as well have a Nanny. Which is the point by the way. If you want care that results in one to one care for a number of hours a day then you must PAY for that service. I don't have that built into my fee. My fee is group care and the group takes a nap. I don't need a staff assistant during nap. I sure don't want to pay for one.

As a provider you are better off having a group of children where they all take a reasonable and fair amount of your individual time. If a child in a group is taking 2.5 hours of direct care every day JUST for nap you will loose money on that child.

[Daycare Mommy]

Yes but if you have an assistant that is not in business with you then you have to PAY that assistant for nap. It would cost me a fortune to pay a staff assistant for 2.5 hours a day to one to one a kid. It would mean that I would have all of the childs salary JUST for nap time. I wouldn't have any money left over to pay that child's portion of the business expenses or my salary.

Having an assistant does not change how expensive it is to have a kid up at nap. Time is money in day care just like every other business. I don't provide service to children who do not NEED a full afternoon nap. If a parent would want that service it would cost about 25 dollars per day on top of their fee. By the time they pay my fee plus the extra fee for nap they might as well have a Nanny. Which is the point by the way. If you want care that results in one to one care for a number of hours a day then you must PAY for that service. I don't have that built into my fee. My fee is group care and the group takes a nap. I don't need a staff assistant during nap. I sure don't want to pay for one.

As a provider you are better off having a group of children where they all take a reasonable and fair amount of your individual time. If a child in a group is taking 2.5 hours of direct care every day JUST for nap you will loose money on that child.

Oh no. I wasn't telling anyone to hire an assistant specifically for kids like this. My point was just that it's easy for someone with an assistant to say, "Let them stay up. What's the big deal?" because maybe for them it isn't. It is a very big deal in my small house with paper thin walls and no assistant. If a 2-yr-old doesn't nap, none of the naptime work gets done and most or all of the kids will miss their nap because there's no way I can keep a kid that age quiet for 1.5-2 hours. If the parent's want a place to let him run til he passes out then they need to specify that in the interview process instead of telling the provider they will help him adjust and never follow through.

[nannyde]

I always do my best to work with the parents and the child, but if it isn't working, and it is distracting me from the other kids, then I simply move on. It's not that they are disposable, they just aren't a good fit and it's stupid to be irritated and stressed about it. Personally, I think its the reason why I don't get burned out. I don't have some crazy notion that I have to make it work with every family.

Yup and the better you can interview this out the better. I did one interview in 2008, 2 in 2009, and 2 so far this year. I have all of these kids in my house with the exception of the one I'm in the process of doing the second interview.

I highly encourage spending the time and effort into screening families on the phone and during the interview process so you can get a feel for whether or not the family can work within what you offer.

It's OKAY to say that you do or don't offer a particular service the parents are wanting. If a parent wants a child to be up for ten straight hours a day they just won't fit into our group. It doesn't mean that the kid needs a nap... it just means that the child needs to be in an envrionment where the option to not nap is available.

It aint personal. This subject gets SO personal and it's unnecessary. As women we are just expected to **** it up and do as we are told. As we are told by the parents, the child, and other providers. We don't have to do that. We can stand proudly and say that we don't want to care for the two year old who is up for ten hours a day in our house. It's cool to say what you will do and won't do.

[MarinaVanessa]

I'm currently caring for a 2 yr old boy in my home. I have been having trouble at naptime. He cries, screams, and gets off his mat the entire 2 hours of naptime. I have had to move him away from the other boys or he would keep them awake. My routine with all the kids I watch is to lower the lights, put on soft music, and rub their backs for a few minutes. I usually stop before they are fully asleep though, so that they learn to go to sleep on their own. Depending on the child it typically takes about a week to learn the routine and then they go down for nap with no problem. I have been working with him for four weeks now and there has been no improvement.

His parents told me the way they get him to sleep at home is to let him play until he passes out on the floor and then pick him up and put him in his crib. They do this for naps and at nightime and have been doing it his whole life. I've talked to them many times about setting up a routine and how to put him down to sleep. They always listen and say they will begin doing it but never do.

After four weeks I would have thought he would have gotten used to my routine, but he hasn't. Should I just keep doing what I'm doing or am I fighting a losing battle. I'm seriously considering telling the family if they don't change their behavior at home I can no longer watch him. I'm at my wit's end. Any advice would be great

I would keep what you are doing and separate the child if that is what you are comfortable with. If this is not something you want to continue to do then I would speak to the parents again (aggravating I know) and tell them how disruptful their child is to the rest of the group. If it were me I would ask them to come up with some ideas on how to put him to sleep and then say that I was at a loss because since the topic of working on it at home has already been discussed and agreed to but no action on the parents behalf has happened yet and so nap will obviously not work. The point of it is to point out that you have duscussed the problem with them, they agreed to a plan and then never followed through. You aren't really asking them for help for a different solution, just pointing out that they aren't cooperating. Usually this will get the parents to cooperate. The problem here isn't just the child but also the parent's resistance to cooperation.

I had trouble with a new 2yo DCG a few months ago that kept crying and getting up during naptime. I layed her down with the rest of the kids on a mat and she would get up (or sit up) and disrupt the rest of the napping kids. I let her cry, reminded her that it was quiet time and laid her back down. Everytime that she got up I laid her back down. EVERY time. If she sat up and cried I told her she needed to lay down and stay quiet and then told her that she didn't have to nap, but she had to stay quiet. If she refused I told her it was ok to cry but she had to do it in the crying corner. I picked her up and sat her in the crying corner and just let her have at it. Once she realized that I didn't mind that she cried she would stop and say she was ready to come out of the crying corner. I would smile and cheerfully pick her up and say "Great. I'm glad you are not crying anymore" or something and lay her back down on her mat. If she cried or got up/sat up again I just did it over again. She eventually started to realize that it was a losing battle and she would not win. Her choices began obvious. She could nap, lay down quietly or sit in the crying corner. This lasted almost 3 weeks. I still tell all of my DC littles they don't have to nap but they have to have quiet time. Within 5-10 minutes they are all asleep. Try this if you like and other methods until you find something that works. Good luck with your case.

[nannyde]

The problem here isn't just the child but also the parent's resistance to cooperation.

Good post

The core problem is that the parents are most likely resisting because in the end it's to their advantage to have him not nap at day care. This allows them to have an easy go at bedtime and he will go to bed EARLY. Getting them to "cooperate" means they have to give up something that is very beneficial to them.

That's wherein the problem lies. If you could get to the truth with the parent you would likely find out that they really don't want him to nap at naptime. If he could stay up he could have the child care provider to himself for two/three hours which is HUGE and they get an easy early bedtime.

The only way to make it not work for the parents is if they don't want to switch day cares. As long as they think you will go along with it there is very little chance they would change anything at home. The end result of the problem for the provider is "easy and early" for them. What the provider is going thru at naptime is exactly what they don't want at home.

Your technique with your two year old sounds exhausting but I'm glad it worked for you. I don't have to deal with this because I don't normally get kids of this age and I have deep play pens that the kids can't get out of at this age. This is going to be more and more of an issue as playpens get more and more shallow on the inside. This is the trend in all baby equipment. For a child this age you need a playpen about 26 inches deep. ( This is the measurement on the inside from the where the kid stands on the mat or bottom of the play pen to the lowest point of the horizontal bar of the play pen. If the play pen has corner posts that allow for a child to grab onto the side and hoist their leg up it becomes even easier.)

As the trend of sizing down equipment continues this issue will get younger and younger.

[Daycare Mommy]

The problem here isn't just the child but also the parent's resistance to cooperation.

Yes! That's what I was saying! :: Not just a no nap issue, it's a uncooperative parent issue! Thanks for the on topic post!

[Jenjo]

One thing I do is have all of the kids lay on their mats and then we listen to two books on tape and then turn on some music. That seems to work really well for me. Most of the kids are asleep before the end of the second story. Good luck!

[MarinaVanessa]

One thing I do is have all of the kids lay on their mats and then we listen to two books on tape and then turn on some music. That seems to work really well for me. Most of the kids are asleep before the end of the second story. Good luck!

Oh yes I guess I should also add this. I never thought to talk about what I did BEFORE nap. As a routine we read 2 stories while they all lay down. They all must stay quiet or I close the book. This helps them wind down and transition over to nap-time. Then I may (or may not) turn the tv on with very low volume. So low that even if you are quiet you have to strain to hear it. I put it on the Sprout channel which is very young children. I don't like having the tv on much but it helps when someone is having trouble keeping still. It's funny to watch them straining their faces to hear the tv (i doubt you could hear even if you were right in front of the speakers ). Eventually their eyes glaze over and they fall asleep .

I agree that some parents like not having their kids nap at DC because they think they'll have an easier time of putting them to sleep at night but I found that my daughter was horrible if she didn't sleep. Not only was she fussy during the afternoon but she straight out threw tantrums before betime. She was OVERLY tired. She always napped until she turned 5 and I thought she could handle an entire day without a nap.

Also I have a DCM that said that her DCB was napping too much here (he's an infant and had a 1 hr max nap in the morn and our usual 2 hr nap in the afternoon so he was actually sleeping 1 hour less than recommended) and she said she had a hard time putting him down to sleep at night. She also said that her son COULDN'T POSSIBLY be put to sleep without a bottle. Um ... lady, he doesn't even drink a bottle here anymore . He refuses them. I feed him baby food (he's 10 months old) and baby snacks at the same times as the rest of the kiddos and I have a bottle prepared for him that I offer him every once in a while but he doesn't want it. Just shakes his head and scrunches up his face . At naptimes I just pick him up and put him in the pack n play and he lays there for a few minutes and before you know it, whudyaknow! He's asleep . Cracks me up. I'm a fan of the CIO (cry it out) method and the kids know that I'm firm so they don't push it much. I wish more parents were firm with their kids .

[Janet]

Nap

Without trying to sound nasty and I am sure it will come out as nasty but by all means I am not...its comments like this that do make me question why some providers even HAVE clients. When you terminate a child because the child doesn't take a freakin NAP, I wonder about how they are able to stay in business if they are (or would) terminating a child even over the stupidest things IE a child not napping.

If a child is given enough time to settle in to a routine, and is not adjusting and it affects the other families, then what would a provider do? A child not napping DOES affect others. I don't consider that a dumb reason to terminate. It's something that affect other children, too. Consider this, too. I don't have an assistand so I rely on my routine to work, and if I have a kid who screams throughout naptime, then the routine can't work! It's not a judgement on the child when I say "NEXT", it's just an acknowledgement that I'm not the provider for that family.

[Abigail]

Start Documenting

I would start writing down how everyday goes with naptime. I would also have another meeting at the end of the week and review the papers and have them sign it and date it. Also, get it in writing what they are doing at home to work with you because consistancy is very important and have them sign and date that.

Tell them you are going to continue to document how nap time disruptions go and give them a time frame this must be fixed by or else you'll have to terminate him according to the guidelines in your contract. I think it is reasonable and only fair. You have already been working with him to try your best, but you still need to work on daycare related things during nap time.

Good Luck!