15 Month Old Terrible Napper! Waking Other Child

[brittmreed]

I have 2 kids that need to nap in 1 room. One is a 2 year old who co sleeps at home, so he cries for about 10 minutes before falling asleep. The other is a 15 month old who does not sleep well at night and her parents are working on sleep training. Her mom says they take her to bed with them if she won't calm down At nap time it's chaos. They both settle and sleep usually within a half hour, but then the 15 month old wakes up crying after an hour or less and wakes the other child. It's so frustrating because normally he would sleep almost 3 hours! What should I do? If I take her out after an hour I feel like I'm just giving in, but if I don't she will wake the other child.

[Michael]

There may be a previous thread here from Nap disruptions that may be of help: https://www.daycare.com/forum/tags.p...+-+disruptions

[childcaremom]

I had a child like that. I tried so many things.

• Going in after a set time. Sh, it's rest time, friends are sleeping. Gradually increasing the time between going in.
• Moving disrupter away from others so to try to minimize the disruption.
• White noise.
• Busy, busy morning so they fall asleep quickly and stay asleep.
• Calling for pick up if they weren't settling.
• Books on cd, quiet music.
• Chatting with parents. Finding out routine at home and getting them on board to mimic the care environment to help their child adjust.

Sometimes, nothing works. I just had to term one that age. I tried everything and nothing. So I have no magic cure but I feel your frustration.

I really try to get the parents involved as much as possible. It is in their child's best interest to have a good rest and be able to self soothe. This is what I do at daycare, please do the same at home.

But at the end of the day, I put a star on the calendar of when I wanted to see improvement by. If there was none, then I termed. I tried for 4 months. It was awful for everyone, esp the little one that was not napping.

And I just read "Sleepless in America". Ha, I should get royalties for the promos I've been doing. It is pretty insightful and a really good one to recommend to parents so that they can see the benefit of a good sleep and what happens when kids don't get the rest that they need. And it also talks positively about daytime naps, so there's that.

Good luck!

[brittmreed]

Thanks! That is very helpful. I have tried all of those things, it's very frustrating because love her mom and she is totally on board with whatever we need to try. This kid just has some serious sleep issues. If I could separate her I would but it's not an option. I'm going to give it a few more weeks I guess.