How Long Should 4 Year Old Nap

[Golden Rule]

Frustrated Mommy,

I am actually dealing with this right now. My 4 year old dkg, whom has been with me since 6 weeks, now does not sleep at naptime. She is not disruptive in any way, just cannot fall asleep (mostly she just watches me mop, fold clothes and blows me kisses...).

Now,After 30 minutes down on her mat, I put headphones on her, scoot her up to my desk, and log her into Time4learning.com. Her mother and I both have the password, her mother pays the subscription fee, and she feels like such a big girl!! She even can print out her scores and certificates for the week. It is preparing her for pre-k, next year while allowing me to meet the needs of everyone else.

As a mother I understand your need to see your daughter treated like the unique person she is and the effects of "Mothers guilt". As a childcare provider I understand the frustration of one child/parent making it difficult to care for the rest in a fair and consistent manner. As a paramedic I know the outright anger of transporting a dead child that could have been saved if he/she had been taught "NO" early and consistently. Please understand that is what is fueling the longterm providers frustration....not freetime to watch their soaps...I promise.

If my particular dkg had been disruptive or if this was more about being spiteful in any way, I would have to stick to the original rules set up in the original contract. (I consider it a reward, not a right.) If the "request" was from the mother (for reasons like "I want her to sleep for the night-time babysitter so she does not kick her out" ...yes, that happens way too much), even though the child obviously needed the nap, I would have to stick to the contract. I am about the best interest of the child. Sometimes that is not the best interest of myself or the parents.

I know it has been questioned why people get into home daycare...Everyone has their own reason. I would recommend asking them, in person, the first time you meet a prospective caregiver. It might save you some heartache. I, personally, got into daycare after my son died in daycare. It afforded me the ability to stay home with my own children, when I was ready to have more, while earning an income to afford them... Now they are teenagers and the dck have made them better, more compassionate people.

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can I just second the below sentence,.... I totally agree!



Now they are teenagers and the dck have made them better, more compassionate people.[/QUOTE]

[judytrickett]

I, personally, got into daycare after my son died in daycare.

Wow, thanks for sharing. That is so terribly, incredibly sad.

[FrustratedMommy]

Golden Rule, thanks so much for your understanding. I was heartbroken to hear your story. I couldn't imagine loosing my little girls. They are the love of my life.

I understand that they daycare lady is not watching soaps but is actually doing the lunch dishes and preparing for the afternoon. I know she needs a break too. Ideally, she would just nap. That is the goal. I only offered other suggestions to the lady since she seemed unable to make that work.

I don't know why she can't seem to make her sleep. I don't have an issue getting her to sleep myself. I do think she still needs the nap.

nannyde says:

The parents solutions to this... by reading the OP are to let her be up. It's very black and white. Anything that she wants to be done with the child means her actually being UP. It's not about the three year old being quietly active during nap it's about her laying in one spot, being quiet, and not getting up until she is told she can. THAT'S nap time. ANYTHING that alters that isn't going to work with most providers.

What about my keeping her up a half an hour later, writing her story and telling her at nap time she should close her eyes and think of all the adventures she can go on, like she does in the story, keeping her schedule consistent on the weekends and putting her down for a nap at the same time as the DAYCARE lady would, not when I feel like it, punishing her when she doesn't nap by making her nap when she comes home rather than going to the park like we usually do, bribing her, having her call me on the phone when she won't sleep so I can tell her to go to sleep... Do these things sound like me being set on having her up. Having her up was one solution we tried that didn't work since she couldn't be quiet. We have gone back to forcing her to sleep again, and we have made some progress. We had over a week of her napping, then one day of fallback, and we have to see what she does today.

For the most part, I follow the daycare lady's routine. When she has parties for the kids birthdays, Easter, Christmas, I always thank her and make sure my kids thank her. When she doesn't give my daughter water all day until the snack time after her nap, and limits that, I don't say anything even though I worry about dehydration and constipation. She thinks it will make her pee at nap time, even though she drinks water all day long at home on weekends and still doesn't pee her bed. When she asked me to bring in a sippy cup for my 18 month old because she said she had issues drinking out of the sippy cups she owned and I didn't want her to drink out of a bottle since she was weaned, I brought in a sippy cup and that worked. I try really hard to let the daycare lady run things the way she wants when she has the kids.

I just think this is an issue that can be fixed. The fact that she sleeps at home tells me she doesn't just need to be UP. The daycare lady needs to find a way to reason with her, discipline her, or manage her like I do at home to make her do as she is told, like she does at home.

She is no stranger to the word no. We are quite strict at home.

[[email protected]]

frustrated Mommy,... I love you. =-) you sound like a really great daycare parent. want to move to Indiana?

[Golden Rule]

nannyde says:

What about my keeping her up a half an hour later, writing her story and telling her at nap time she should close her eyes and think of all the adventures she can go on, like she does in the story, keeping her schedule consistent on the weekends and putting her down for a nap at the same time as the DAYCARE lady would, not when I feel like it, punishing her when she doesn't nap by making her nap when she comes home rather than going to the park like we usually do, bribing her, having her call me on the phone when she won't sleep so I can tell her to go to sleep... Do these things sound like me being set on having her up. Having her up was one solution we tried that didn't work since she couldn't be quiet. We have gone back to forcing her to sleep again, and we have made some progress. We had over a week of her napping, then one day of fallback, and we have to see what she does today.

I just think this is an issue that can be fixed. The fact that she sleeps at home tells me she doesn't just need to be UP. The daycare lady needs to find a way to reason with her, discipline her, or manage her like I do at home to make her do as she is told, like she does at home.

She is no stranger to the word no. We are quite strict at home.

These things make me wonder if maybe she is seeking attention by opposition? I did this to my sitters all the time when I was younger...!!! Maybe she caught on that when she is quiet she gets less attention and she sees this as a perfect time to get hers in? Not finger pointing at adults, just realizing how smart she is.... She is getting extra time with both of you this way Do you see it, too, anyone?...:: Squeaky wheel, maybe?

It is possible that the best solution is to do nothing, literally. Just put her on her mat, matter of factly, then continue with chores. No discussion. It may pass as quickly as it came on.

[FrustratedMommy]

LOL, thank you laundryduchess.

That may be a good point Golden Rule. I will pass that along to the daycare provider. I think she is trying that now in a way.

She puts her on the mat with the other kids and stays in the room to prevent her waking the other kids, I think my daughter is at least laying down now and sleeping most of the time.

It is a little better now that she kicked out the aggressive boy. He was at times destructive and a bad influence on the other kids, doing things such as coloring on the walls etc. Then if the daycare lady had to deal with him and not get a break because my daughter didn't sleep it was really difficult for her.

I will also continue to try putting her for a nap when we get home if she didn't sleep at daycare since this is removing attention rather than giving additional attention. She missed out on a playdate on Monday because she didn't sleep so she really understood the consequences there.

Thank you both for your help.

[Chickenhauler]

Ufortunately, that would mean I would never find daycare. Here for each spot, there are 20 kids lined up for each spot. If your child has any challenges at all, they dump you and find another kid.

What I am hearing from this post is that all daycare providers are like this. None of them actually like children, or maybe they like children as long as they are complacent and easy to deal with.

The provider interviews the child and parent to see if they are easy and complacent to work with, if not, they go to the next in line. If you use cloth diapers, if your child hits, or doesn't want to nap, next in line please.

I also have two children, so maybe I could find a place that is absolutely perfect for my three year old, but would my 18 month old be happy there? Should I leave my 18 month old with this lady for another year until she gets to old for her, and just move my three year old? Then I would be picking them up at two different places, perhaps on opposite ends of the city, and I would have to move the baby eventually anyway since I am sure as soon as she turns 3 the daycare lady will decide she doesn't like her anymore.

What I am looking for, is advice from a daycare provider who perhaps encountered this situation and not run from it. What did you do to fix it? Perhaps there are some ideas I can pass on to my provider in the hopes that she will not kick my daughter out in favour of a complacent, easy child.

You mention contracts in your line of work....when the time comes to line up some new work, and you have tons of jobs to choose from, do you choose the most stress free, profitable one of the bunch, or do you choose the most difficult, hair pulling, demanding, and lowest paying one?

That is true, and for not much pay either; however, for some reason people do choose this job. Nobody is saying it is easy.

Although, I don't know what you are talking about with an hour long lunch. Most jobs here are 7.5 hours work, with a half hour lunch or 8 hours with 1/2 lunch and two 15 min breaks. I don't know anybody who has an hour lunch.

Plus if you have ever worked in an office, you sit in a cube all day, half the time you are bored because they don't have any work for you, so you need to 'look' busy. You cannot do anything that even looks remotely like you are goofing off, such as reading, surfing the internet. They walk by and look at your screen. You need to have your compiler up at all times, be in your seat and find something to occupy your mind that is not noticeable. Or you are incredibly busy and working through lunch because you have a deadline to meet, and no, you don't get paid overtime for this. Programmers are generally control freaks, so they fight all the time, misunderstand each other and it is not a fun, loving environment, and the boss rarely tells you when you do good work, but certainly points out when you mess up. This is life. This is the job I chose. I come in every day and do my best.

Daycare providers choose their job too. There are pros and cons to every job and EVERY job is hard. Pick one and do your best at it. Try and work with your boss to make it a good environment. If you don't like your job, you always have the option of doing something else. Yes, I know it is challenging to change careers, that is one of the reasons I am still here. I don't want to take a paycut.

I am sure you get rewards too, like when your kids don't want to go home because daycare is so much fun, or when you were there when the baby walked for the first time and the parents were stuck in a cubicle. There must be a reason why you do this job, or else you wouldn't do it.

Sounds to me like you hate your job, only go there for the paycheck (not because you enjoy what you do).

I was once in your position....great pay, great benefits, hated the job, hated my co-workers, hated the area I worked in, hated EVERYTHING about my career.

I quit and struck out in a new direction. Life's too short to be miserable for a few sheckels in the pocket at the end of the week.

The funny thing is, I did take an initial cut in pay, but 10 years later, I'm making over TWICE what I would have topped out at in my previous line of work. Mainly because I enjoy my work, and it shows.

[Janet]

Frustrated mommy...

Look, I can empathize with you. I had a non-napping child as well. However, I never, ever expected her to disregard her policies, the law, the rights of the other kids to nap or her own right to some down time. I made it clear to my daughter that she was to lay quietly and she would never sleep but she would always lay quietly. I have a home daycare business and I've always stuck to my nap policy. I get that parents don't want their providers to force their kids to sleep, but who says they have to sleep? I require them to lay quietly for a good portion of nap time. Please remember that you may not be the only parent with kids in your provider's care so she may have other people to please other than you. Also, when was the last time that you had to try to pacify a 3 year old without waking 5 other sleeping children? It's no easy task. As far as this business of providers not being willing to take on a challenge, I have to respectfully disagree. I love a good challenge, but I also know when it's a challenge that I don't want to take on. Your job is not like our jobs. I'm not saying that one job is better than the other, I'm just saying that they are totally different jobs. You can't compare taking on a challenge at your job to taking on a challenge at ours. Totally different. You have a boss and a goal to accomplish. We don't have bosses but we have many different people to try to make happy. It's apples and oranges.

It's great that you are willing to offer up suggestions to your provider. That's a good thing. I wish that more parents would do that, because it truly is a team effort. I'd gladly take suggestions from the parents of the kids in my care if I needed some help and I have asked for suggestions when I come across a situation that I need help on. My ego's not so big that I think that I'm the authority on all things child related. I know that you offer your provider suggestions and you say that you are on her side, but some of your comments about her tend to give me the impression that she's not doing good enough for you. I get the feeling that you think that the grass would be greener on the other side. Could just be me, I guess, but you seemed a little passive-aggressive about your provider.

If you're not happy with the nap time situation, then I think that you should try to find a provider who doesn't have napping kids or you need to keep reinforcing with your daughter that naptime is quiet time. That means no playing or talking or any other activity that could get loud. Since the other kids do nap, then it's your job to find a way to make it work. If the shoe were on the other foot, and your kid was the one with the interrupted nap, you'd expect the same, I'd bet.

[momofsix]

Frustrated Mommy, I feel really horrible that you say this provider "hates" toddlers and is always complaining about your child Maybe your child isn't sleeping because the atmosphere isn't comfortable at all for her? Unless you are exaagerating daycare lady's feelings, I would not want my child anywhere that she is hated, simply because of her age!

[gkids09]

LOL, thank you laundryduchess.

That may be a good point Golden Rule. I will pass that along to the daycare provider. I think she is trying that now in a way.

She puts her on the mat with the other kids and stays in the room to prevent her waking the other kids, I think my daughter is at least laying down now and sleeping most of the time.

It is a little better now that she kicked out the aggressive boy. He was at times destructive and a bad influence on the other kids, doing things such as coloring on the walls etc. Then if the daycare lady had to deal with him and not get a break because my daughter didn't sleep it was really difficult for her.

I will also continue to try putting her for a nap when we get home if she didn't sleep at daycare since this is removing attention rather than giving additional attention. She missed out on a playdate on Monday because she didn't sleep so she really understood the consequences there.

Thank you both for your help.

Frustrated Mommy, you say your provider stays in the room with her so she won't wake up the other kids. You also said earlier that, at home, your daughter sleeps two hours at naptime. I have had the experience before with kids who don't want to nap because they are afraid they will miss something...Sounds like me when I was a kid. With those kids, I stayed in the room, and either sat down or laid down next to them and rubbed their back, arms, and eyes (whichever seems to work best for that child). Once they go to sleep, I could get up and get done what I needed to get done. I wonder if your provider has tried that? It's almost impossible for a kid to stay awake when you are rubbing her eyes, because if they keep them open, your finger will go in them. (oh, and no, I have NEVER allowed my finger to poke a child in the eye, just so everyone knows!) I also have lullaby music playing softly every single day at naptime, and that helps too. Just a couple ideas your might want to suggest. While in my contract it says that we have nap/quiet time from 1:30-3:30, I realize that some children have a harder time going to sleep. I try my very best to accommodate them while keeping my rules intact. It is kind of hard to get everything done that needs to be done during nap time, but if you practice it a few times, you get pretty fast at it.

[FrustratedMommy]

Well, I spoke with my provider again today. It seems my daughter does lay down with the other kids, for as long as she stays in the room. Unfortunately, some days, after an hour of laying down quietly with the other kids, my daughter is still not asleep and then the provider wants to leave the room, to do the dishes. If she leaves my daughter in the room she will wake up the other kids, even though we have both explained to her several times that the other kids want to sleep and it is not fair to them to wake them up because you don't want to sleep. Every day that she doesn't sleep, she gets the lecture, and now she has to skip the park as well if she doesn't sleep.

Now it seems what the daycare lady is doing is taking her out of the room if she is not asleep after an hour, and leaving her in the hallway, with all the doors closed. So today she called to her sister through the door and woke her up, then she went to sleep. I understand the frustration, I would be mad at her too, and I tell her so when I pick her up. The problem is, I am not there, I cannot control the situation, so I all I get is complaints and hearsay when I pick her up. I was under the impression that she was telling the daycare lady no and not laying down on her mat. Actually what she is laying down on her mat with her eyes open and looking at the daycare lady. I will mention the rubbing of the eyes though to keep them closed. I think now she is trying to take the attention away though, since as Golden Rule mentioned, she thinks she is doing this for attention. She lays down on the floor and turns away from my daughter so as to remove the attention.

She does not "hate" my daughter. I think she likes her for the most part, but she prefers babies, and the fact that she always raves about my baby and complains about my toddler, does not make me feel good. I worry that she is going to give my daughter a complex and make her jealous of her sister whom she now loves. I also get the impression that she is looking for any excuse to get rid of her, as she makes it clear that she is doing me a favour by taking her since she doesn't normally take toddlers. She reminds me of this periodically if my daughter misbehaves.

I am frustrated with the Aylmer situation in general, since the daycares are all subsidized, but it is nearly impossible to get a spot, the daycare people are more complacent than in other places. All the people I know in Aylmer have difficulty since there are so few places for a large population. If you find a spot, you keep your mouth shut, hang on as hard as you can and pray you don't get kicked out for something out of your control. Perhaps this is where my passive agression comes from. Every time you pick up your kids, there is always something the daycare lady will complain about. At one place they told me she had diarrhea which is a kickable offence if it happens too often. Oddly enough since she the time she was 6 months old, my daughter has been so constipated she would cry when she had a bowel movement. The diarrhea complaint was a huge surprise. When she began to cry during her bowel movements again, then the daycare lady said it was perfect. When it came time to bring my baby, this woman made it clear that she didn't want babies. She begrudingly agreed to take our baby, after giving us the run around. I was concerned though that the baby would sense that she was not wanted and was looking for something else. Amazingly, I found the current lady who agreed to take both my kids. At the time I thought I was dreaming to find a place for the baby. That was pure luck.

Then this lady would complain my toddler wouldn't eat. So I told her, put the food in front of her, if she doesn't eat, take it away and don't give her cookies at snack time. She still continued to complain that she doesn't eat. I continued to reiterate, that if she doesn't eat it is fine, she just eats more at supper. Then the woman got really angry that her child eats at home but not here. She took it as a personal insult that my kid wouldn't eat her food. I explained that we had to go through an entire process of taking her supper out for breakfast if she didn't eat it for supper. Finally she got the message and now she eats at home. I offered to try that for her if it was a big deal. So she started sending the lunch home if she didn't eat it and my daughter would have to eat it for supper. She ate the meal fine at home. This made her even more angry because she felt that my daughter was being disrespectful to her by not eating at lunch time. Then I told her to make the portion sizes smaller because what she sent home was enough to feed her for the entire week, and if you put too much on her plate she thinks she has to eat the entire plate and gets discourged. This helped somewhat, she eats maybe 3 / 5 days of the week. It still bugs the daycare lady but the napping thing trumped that so she stopped complaining about it. Honestly, I don't understand why it was such a big deal in the first place. She won't starve by skipping lunch, and it wasn't causing her any more work as I was very insistant that she should not make my daughter special food. She just didn't like the idea of her not eating.

As for my job, I like it a lot of the time, hate it some of the time. I don't get to pick my contracts, I work for a consulting company and they tell me where to go. If the situation at work gets tense, I stick it out until the contract is over, because I don't think it is fair to leave the client hanging, or make the consulting company find me another job. There are not a lot of technology jobs, and I know a lot of programmers out of work, or settling for low paying jobs. I myself worked for half what I should be paid for 6 years because I didn't think I could get anything else. Eventually they laid me off while I was on maternity and I had to find something else. I ended up making twice as much money, but the other job was more fun, since I was always busy. My point is, every job has pros and cons, some of the people on here talking about what it is like to run a daycare makes it sound like they hate their job. I don't always like my job either, but I go to work, do the best I can, and I don't complain to my boss constantly unless I want to be fired. The daycare people here know they won't be fired because they are so scarce so if something causes them any effort at all, like having to heavern forbid actually wipe my daughter's bum, they pass it along to the parents and expect them to magically solve the problem.

Honestly, the daycare situtation is so bad here, I even fix the daycare ladies computer for free in the hopes that she will want to keep me around.

[FrustratedMommy]

Oh, and the shoe was on the other foot at one point. In the previous daycare a child was biting my daughter. I actually sympathised with the mother since she was horrified and doing everything in her power to stop it, but nothing seemed to work. When my daughter left, I think she was a bit relieved, even though her daughter and my daughter were very close, because that solved the problem. I certainly didn't want that child to be kicked out of the daycare as I understand how difficult it is to find one in the first place. In fact, I was making suggestions to help resolve that situation as well.

We started getting the kids together out of daycare in the hopes that we would actually witness the biting so the mother could discipline on the spot. As with my problem, the mother was not actually there when the biting happened, so it is difficul for her to punish her child. It doesn't have the same effect when you do it hours later. I completely understand how she felt, and I was just happy my daughter was the one being bitten rather than being the one doing the biting since I was not responsible for solving that problem. I was already getting an earful every day due to the fact that my daughter had a less than firm bowel movement. You just feel completely helpless, there is a weight in your chest all the time, I get butterflies in my stomache when I leave work to pick up my kids because I am scared to find out if she slept or not today. I just don't know what to do.

[fctjc1979]

Wow, that's a really tough situation. If it were me, I'd pull my kids out of daycare and start my own daycare. But not everyone is good with kids or wants to deal with kids all day. I'd start looking for other day care. I know you said it's hard to find, but that's exactly the reason you should find someone else. It sounds like it wouldn't take much for this lady to kick you out. And if you find other care, maybe you won't have to worry about your kids so much. It sounds like a very unsafe system to have too many kids and not enough daycares because the daycare providers can get away with anything by the sound of it.

[gkids09]

Wow, that's a really tough situation. If it were me, I'd pull my kids out of daycare and start my own daycare. But not everyone is good with kids or wants to deal with kids all day. I'd start looking for other day care. I know you said it's hard to find, but that's exactly the reason you should find someone else. It sounds like it wouldn't take much for this lady to kick you out. And if you find other care, maybe you won't have to worry about your kids so much. It sounds like a very unsafe system to have too many kids and not enough daycares because the daycare providers can get away with anything by the sound of it.

I was about to suggest the idea of starting your own daycare too. Especially if the providers in your area complain as much as yours. You seem like someone who is willing to work with everyone else in the best interest of the child. I hate you are going through this. I hope everything works out for you!!