Waking Child Up During Naptime

[momma2girls]

This is what I do too. WHen waking them I also take into consideration what time they actually fell asleep. Sometimes mine play/talk/ laugh for 30-45 minutes before they actually drift off to sleep!

I wake up everyone at 3:30 and not before.

[Francine]

Please tell me you are charging them for a full time slot. I don't do half days. BTDT and all it is is the parent wanting to pay for half a day of care when the half the kid is missing is a time when they would be asleep anyway.

Noooo I'm not, I know that I should be but like I said earlier when I took them on I was desperately in need of clients and one of the reasons that they left the other daycare was that she wasn't willing to work with them. That being said they wanted to just do Wednesdays and I said no way that I needed at least two full days so they broke it up into two half days and 1 full day. I don't normally do half days either but I really wanted them so I worked with them.

[professionalmom]

One of my biggest rules: You never, ever wake a sleeping child, UNLESS it is an emergency (fire, tornado, spiking a high fever and needs medial attention) or the parents arrive to pick up. Period. If they are still asleep, they must need the extra sleep. Plus, you never know if the child has caught a bug and needs the extra sleep time to fight it off. Also, when children sleep (and adults for that matter), their brains are working overtime to process everything that has happened during the waking hours. It helps to improve their overall brain function and don't we all want brilliant children?

[melissa ann]

I have a 15 mo in my care. Most days he is here right after 6am. I give him breakfast and let him play till about 7. Then, down for a nap. Not long. He ususally gets up after an hour. If he doesn't nap in the morning, he is out by 10 and will sleep longer and miss lunch. With his morning nap, he still takes a nap after lunch with the older kids I'm very firm about everyone taking afternoon naps. Otherwise, by, 2-3pm, they are all crabby as all heck.

[QualiTcare]

See I don't give out articles like this if they say something like eleven hours for a toddler. The low end of the range is what they will use to justify their request. The parent comes back with "he's sleeping twelve hours at night so he doesn't need any sleep at your house".

Parents who ask you to do stuff like this are asking you to make it possible for them to put the kid to bed for the night very shortly after the kid goes back into the care. They want the kid to drop dead asleep and sleep until it's time to come back to your house.

They want as little time with their child awake as they can possibly get. They don't want them up in the evening and they don't want to have to have a family routine where they put the child to bed awake and they put themselves to sleep.

These are very important child rearing times and they are trying to get you to make up for what they don't want to do in the evening/night so they don't have to do it.

do you think all parents are bad - or just the ones that take their kids to daycare?

[QualiTcare]

if you have a scheduled nap time then the parents should assume when they sign up that their kids will be sleeping from 12-2 (or whatever the time is) -

but that also means they don't expect them to be sleeping PAST 2. i can't believe there are kids waking from nap as late as 3:30-4. my god - i bet those parents never get the kids to sleep at night.

i hear there are kids who go to bed at 8pm. mine never have and their naps were from 12:30-2:30. of course i always suspected the providers were a little eager to start naptime early and not so eager for it to end - so that 12:30-2:30 turns into 12-3 for kids that already stay up til 10-11 at night.

i guess i'm alone here, but if naptime is over at 2:30 - i'd wake them up at 2:30. the only thing worse than someone letting kids sleep half the day is LYING about how long they slept. my mother in law is the queen of it - and i know providers do it too. EVERYONE knows when you lie about naptime. ohhh, so it's just a coincidence that he stays up until 2 a.m. after spending the day at your house when he's always asleep by 11 - okay!! that's believable.

[nannyde]

do you think all parents are bad - or just the ones that take their kids to daycare?

Nope

I think parents who want young children to stay up for ten hours at your house want to put their kids to bed without any fussing and they want them to go to bed early in the evening.

[nannyde]

One of my biggest rules: You never, ever wake a sleeping child, UNLESS it is an emergency (fire, tornado, spiking a high fever and needs medial attention) or the parents arrive to pick up. Period. If they are still asleep, they must need the extra sleep. Plus, you never know if the child has caught a bug and needs the extra sleep time to fight it off. Also, when children sleep (and adults for that matter), their brains are working overtime to process everything that has happened during the waking hours. It helps to improve their overall brain function and don't we all want brilliant children?

We wake the kids up almost every day. We have a schedule and we stick to it pretty closely. I don't want them sleeping past three p.m. so we go into the rooms at around two forty five and start making a little noise. We put the TV on for a bit and let everyone wake up slowly. Some pop right up and some wake up over time.

I don't like the idea of them sleeping too much past three. I think that can cause bedtime issues for the three/four year olds especially.

[QualiTcare]

Nope

I think parents who want young children to stay up for ten hours at your house want to put their kids to bed without any fussing and they want them to go to bed early in the evening.

oh, okay. i get the impression that you really, really don't like parents. i didn't know if you thought all parents don't want their kids or just the ones that have two people in the home working and have to use daycare. either way, that's a LOT of unwanted pregnancies if you're right.

[professionalmom]

We wake the kids up almost every day. We have a schedule and we stick to it pretty closely. I don't want them sleeping past three p.m. so we go into the rooms at around two forty five and start making a little noise. We put the TV on for a bit and let everyone wake up slowly. Some pop right up and some wake up over time.

I don't like the idea of them sleeping too much past three. I think that can cause bedtime issues for the three/four year olds especially.

When I had a full daycare (6 children), a couple would wake up after 2 hours and I let them get up even though others were still sleeping. If the others woke up -great! But I had 2 sisters who would sleep for 3-4 hours if I let them. However, they also had 6 older siblings at home and I got the impression that there was always some kind of activity at their house and they did not get much sleep at night. These were also the 2 girls that would eat anything I served and would eat until they puked, if I let them. The older of the 2 girls always begged me to let her stay at my house when it was time to go home.

But I don't actually wake them up. Once a couple of kids are awake, I let them get up. They end up making enough noise to wake the others. But until at least 2 or 3 are awake they need to stay quiet. But I never say, "come up, Johnny, it's time to wake up sleepy head. Rise and shine."

[nannyde]

oh, okay. i get the impression that you really, really don't like parents. i didn't know if you thought all parents don't want their kids or just the ones that have two people in the home working and have to use daycare. either way, that's a LOT of unwanted pregnancies if you're right.

If I'm right about what? You are turning this into something I didn't say.

I'll try it for the third time: I think parents who want young children to stay up in day care for ten straight hours want their children to go to bed at night without fussing and want them to go to bed early in the evening.

These two year olds that are up from six/seven in the morning and up for nine/ten hours straight at day care go to sleep by passing out and they go to bed early in the evening.

This makes it possible for the parents to not have to have a bedtime routine where they put the child to bed awake and the child puts himself to sleep. It makes it possible for them to go to bed EARLY in the evening so the parents can have TIME at night where they don't have their kids up.

You can call it whatever you want but the OP post was a textbook case of this scenario. Over the many years I have done day care I have seen this in my own business and in the business of MANY of my friends who do care.

Children need TIME with their parents after day care. They need activities at home with their family. They need to go outside and do educational activies with their parents. They need to have a family routine where they as a family do meals, bath, time FOR the child, and a consistent bedtime routine.

Bypassing that by having an exhausted kid who has been up for twelve hours does not a healthy balanced child make.

We need to stop pretending that this isn't a real issue in this society because it is. We need to stop throwing silly excuses into the mix. We need to stop pretending that there are "special" cases where normal healthy children can do without sleep. We need to quit insisting that providers **** it up and just take care of these children because the child's parents don't want to parent their kid.

Enough

[Unregistered]

sometimes i gently remind parents that young children must have enough sleep to thrive. if a young child is up until 10 or 11 at night it is a disapline issue and not a sleep issue

[QualiTcare]

If I'm right about what? You are turning this into something I didn't say.

I'll try it for the third time: I think parents who want young children to stay up in day care for ten straight hours want their children to go to bed at night without fussing and want them to go to bed early in the evening.

These two year olds that are up from six/seven in the morning and up for nine/ten hours straight at day care go to sleep by passing out and they go to bed early in the evening.

This makes it possible for the parents to not have to have a bedtime routine where they put the child to bed awake and the child puts himself to sleep. It makes it possible for them to go to bed EARLY in the evening so the parents can have TIME at night where they don't have their kids up.

You can call it whatever you want but the OP post was a textbook case of this scenario. Over the many years I have done day care I have seen this in my own business and in the business of MANY of my friends who do care.

Children need TIME with their parents after day care. They need activities at home with their family. They need to go outside and do educational activies with their parents. They need to have a family routine where they as a family do meals, bath, time FOR the child, and a consistent bedtime routine.

Bypassing that by having an exhausted kid who has been up for twelve hours does not a healthy balanced child make.

We need to stop pretending that this isn't a real issue in this society because it is. We need to stop throwing silly excuses into the mix. We need to stop pretending that there are "special" cases where normal healthy children can do without sleep. We need to quit insisting that providers **** it up and just take care of these children because the child's parents don't want to parent their kid.

Enough

to answer your question - i meant if you're right about parents not wanting to spend time with their kids ever - and i wasn't referring to your response to this post ONLY and this PARTICULAR situation - you speak generally about parents, not only in this post, but others as well.

i realize there are parents who would love to have someone else care for their children all the time and don't care if they ever see them - i've met some. but not ALL parents (again, you speak very generally/negatively) are like that. i'm not - are you?

that's why i asked if you think ALL parents meet the criteria of wanting as little to do with their children as possible, or if it's just parents who use daycare services that fall into this category.

do you not have any parents that are crazy about their kids - that pick them up as soon as they get off work and show interest in what they're doing at daycare, etc?

my children went to daycare and i didn't want them sleeping past 2:30 (the time they are supposed to wake up) after a 2.5-3 hour nap. does that mean i didn't want to have to deal with them at night? apparently not because we never got home before 6:30 and they didn't go to bed until 10 or 11 - sometimes later on weekends. if they HAD been allowed to sleep even longer i couldn't imagine how late they'd stay up. so, just because a parent doesn't want their kids "getting their nap out" based on the provider's opinion doesn't mean they don't want to deal with their kids at home.

i have had parents who picked their kids up at 6:00 and told me they went to bed at 7 or 8. i don't know HOW that's possible if you don't walk in the door until 6:15-6:30, make dinner, feed them, bathe them, AND spend time with them. my evenings were rushed to get all that done when they stayed up until 10 or 11 so if baffled me.

you just seem to have the opinion that most parents are inherently bad. so, i asked - do you think it's all parents or just DC parents? if i'm wrong and that's not how you feel, it sure seems that way.

[nannyde]

you just seem to have the opinion that most parents are inherently bad. so, i asked - do you think it's all parents or just DC parents? if i'm wrong and that's not how you feel, it sure seems that way.

Naw that's silly. Of course there are good and bad in every segment of the population.

I'm fortunate enough that I can be quite picky about who I take and can interview out a lot of the potential issues in parenting or lack thereof. I've been doing this for a long time.

I DO think we have a serious decline in the quality of parenting in this generation. I can't speak to parents that don't work and don't use child care because I don't work in or study that group of parents.

I'm also able to afford a staff assistant WITH a low ratio of children (max is one adult to four children). I have parents who want to pay for that. That's very hard to find. When you start getting down to the segment of the population that values your work and experience and is able to pay for your services you do end up with a pretty good lot of clients. All of my children have been with me since infancy with the oldest being four.

So yes I'm crazy for my current clients. I've had a really good group for the last five years or so. I worked HARD to get to these guys. I'm very picky and they go thru a three interview process that extends over about three weeks to get a slot. Even after that they are not guaranteed a slot. I don't have them contract with me until they have been here for at least three months but usually around six. I take it slowly with them so I can see them in action before I contract with them.

[misol]

i guess i'm alone here, but if naptime is over at 2:30 - i'd wake them up at 2:30. the only thing worse than someone letting kids sleep half the day is LYING about how long they slept. my mother in law is the queen of it - and i know providers do it too. EVERYONE knows when you lie about naptime. ohhh, so it's just a coincidence that he stays up until 2 a.m. after spending the day at your house when he's always asleep by 11 - okay!! that's believable.

I let my kids sleep past my scheduled nap time and I have never lied to a parent about how long their child slept. I usually just say "Johnny was really tired today. He slept until 3:30 and I had to wake him up for snack. Did he have a late night or early start this morning?" I only have one dcb that I have to wake up on a regular basis. Everyone else is usually up well before naptime ends.