When the day sleep at preschool becomes a problem

January 27, 2021

by Kiindred

Sleeping through the night is never easy for children, especially as they get older and they’ve had too much rest during the day. Noticing your little one going from a full night sleep to suddenly resisting their bedtime or waking during the night can be confusing.

You might start wondering if it has anything to do with that quiet time during preschool. When the night-time routine starts stretching out from 30 minutes to nearly 2 hours, it could be time to take a look at preschool. 

When they start having their after-lunch quiet time, it’s likely your little one might be lapping up some extra napping time. Usually, naps start to fade around 3-4 years old but they still need a whopping 10-12 hours of sleep in one day (ahh wouldn’t that be nice!)

So, if they’re getting a 1-2-hour nap at school, it’s likely that they won’t be able to fall asleep as easily at home. This can turn into a bad cycle for your night-time routine. Having them up late at night is definitely not ideal for you or them. 

Missing out on several hours of sleep at night is not only frustrating for you but it’s also bad for their health and wellbeing. The restorative sleep they get at night is super important for their development as well as their positive spirit the next day. 

So, should you start asking them to cut back on naps in school?

This isn’t always so easy. Teachers can have a difficult time addressing this since your little one might be showing signs of serious sleepiness during the day. From their perspective, it can be difficult to juggle the needs of every parent and child.

Nonetheless, your child might seriously need to cut back on the naps. So you can try:

Talking to the teacher

Sometimes they can be fully willing to cut down the time or even get rid of nap time altogether. If not, there might be an area where slightly older children who don’t need nap time are playing together. Your little one can start doing that instead.

Look into special accommodations

There could be some different ways to get around nap time. As long as you think about other ideas, it’s likely the teacher will be more than willing to help out. Perhaps they can allow your child to sit quietly and read or do a puzzle so they are still getting time to rest without sleeping.

Bring forward bedtime

oBe flexible whilst your child gets used to this new change, they will likely come home from preschool very tired and cranky as they adapt. So be sure to get them off to bed earlier so you can avoid them becomming overtired.

Be flexible

Remember that it might take a few weeks for you, your child and their teachers to all adjust and be on board with this new change in routine.

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