Your take on naps at preschool?
Our 3-year-old daughter has a 90-minute nap right after lunch.
It's a nice little mid-day rest, but it virtually assures difficulty in getting her to bed at night.
we tried asking the teachers to shorten her nap (which they are happy to oblige) but our daughter ended up feeling a little out of sorts -- aka all the other kids get to have their nap, she gets woken up early.
I realize teachers need a break for lunch and all, but 90 minutes seems like a long time.
What about your children? how old, and how long is their nap?
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Re: Your take on naps at preschool?
Ours has the same routine (school does around 1.5 hours) and has been napping in the afternoons since birth. Her average bedtime is 9:30ish (falling asleep between 9:30-10) and she usually wakes up around 7.
Doesn't really seem to affect her sleep patterns, but lately she has been waking up screaming in the middle of the night like clockwork. I think this phenomenon is called "Night Terrors". No amount of consoling or cajoling seems to help.
Not much we can do except wait it out.
Jerry Chan, Editorial Director
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Re: Your take on naps at preschool?
I HATE HATE HATE the forced naps at our kids local chinese preschool.
When my kids do not nap, they wake up at 7am, and are in bed by 6:30pm and asleep by 7pm. By morning, we are ALL refreshed and the next day is great. This was a really good schedule for everyone in my family.
Going to local school, they are forced to nap 2 hours a day... I don't mind that they get up earlier, often around 6-6:30, they know breakfast isn't until 7 and they use this time to either cuddle with us or play together or alone... it's fine. But it is the evening bedtimes... on good days, we get them in to bed around 7, but that is followed by stories and cuddling and no sleep until 8pm sometimes 8:30 and on rare occasions later.
Don't get me wrong, I love my kids, but I need me time in the evening too, and my husband and I need time together too, and we just don't get that anymore.
This also requires from us a stricter bedtime routine...where we don't let them keep making excuses to get up... it's much easier when they are asleep earlier and happy to do so.
Our routine is something like this:
7:00 am brakfast at home
8:00 leave for school, arrive around 8:30 (this takes in to account the days we don't make it out the door by 8!)
11:30 lunch at school
12:30 - 2:30 nap at school
2:30 - 3:30 snack of fruit and getting dressed, etc...
3:30 playing/classes whatever the school has on that day
4:00 I pick the kids up from school (most other parents pick up later at 5:30 or so)
4:15 playing with me in English, reading or going out, sometimes a small fruit snack
5:00 or 5:30 dinner
6:00 bath
7:00 my husband or I are in their bedroom reading books
7:30 lights out and cuddling with hubby or me
7:45 I leave the room and say 'I'll be back in 10 minutes only if you are quiet'
8:00 I check on them and they are often asleep
(note: if they did not nap at school, I would pick them up earlier to have more time with them in the afternoon, probably around 2:30 - either way we get 4 hours together in the afternoon, it is just that the later the hours the less 'quality' they are for me as it is just too late)
Last year, I picked them up during nap time every Friday, and we would spend the afternoon going to a trampoline class then playing and I would try to exhaust them so we could get an earlier night on Friday with the chance of hubby and I getting some time together before we are exhausted in the evening.
About once a week, we will ask the ayi to stay late so my husband and I can go out... but we won't leave until they have been asleep for 30 minutes, so it's often 8:30 by then, and while we do actually get out, we don't really enjoy it that much as we are soooo tired usually. Also, it's not that healthy to eat dinner that late.
Of course this varies every day by a bit, but it gives an idea... it's a pretty intense long evening compared to the 6:30/7pm bedtime.
Sometimes I feel guilty for hating the nap times, as studies have shown that naps are very good for kids (and adults!) and increase learning capabilities in the afternoon... but I think this has to be balanced against the negative effect it has had on our overall family life, which is quite draining in our case. We are always the ones to put them to bed, never the ayi or anyone else.
I dream of them starting primary school where naps will be a thing of the past and the 7pm bedtime will return! Unfortunately, this is Sept 2012 for my son and Sept 2013 for my daughter!!
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Re: Your take on naps at preschool?
holy cow. even without a nap my kid isn't typically asleep until 9 or 10. With the nap, it's 11-12.
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Re: Your take on naps at preschool?
Same here
DJ/event info beijingbass@yahoo.com Mixes here - not event music
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Re: Your take on naps at preschool?
Ditto - i am amazed that you can (could) get your kids to bed that early. It would be a miracle if our daughter could sleep from 7 to 7
Jerry Chan, Editorial Director
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Re: Your take on naps at preschool?
I think the naps are a good thing.
I (usually!) enjoy giving my kids some time in the evenings and taking them out with us. Being awake in the evening, they also gain some English exposure which they'd otherwise miss (I can't afford international school).
I don't get home from work until 8/9pm (not late for Chinese parents), and I'd hate to never see my kids awake.
My four year old tends to go to sleep around 10-11pm and wakes up at 7:30am. The Ayi can cope fine if we go out leaving the kids home awake.
Waking kids early from their nap is cruel.
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Re: Your take on naps at preschool?
^ I just wish they were a bit shorter. My ideal timing:
Asleep at 9
Up at 7am
Noontime nap (1 hour)
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Re: Your take on naps at preschool?
My kids have always had a good sleep routine, and usually sleep 12 hours a day.... so with the forced kindergarten naps, that is reduced to 10 hours at night, rather than 12....
Today, for example, they were both up by 6am... and although they have been in bed since 7pm, they are now just falling asleep at 8pm... for about 40 minutes we cuddled and relaxed together, they have been alone for 20 minutes falling to sleep themselves....
But every family is different, and as long as what you have works for you, it's good!
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Re: Your take on naps at preschool?
Every family is indeed different...Naps ARE important though.. forcing to wake up early from nap IS cruel so just ask your teachers to put ur kids for a nap a bit later...thats what we did when worked at preschool... but I will speak from my experience: putting kid for a nap later then other kids worked of course much better then waking up earlier so we let kids to stay for a while up and read some books or do some puzzles together...well, poor kids..looking at other kids sleeping they were falling asleep right on the couch with that same book
The kids were getting used to routine so either waking them up early or putting to sleep later would have it's effect: most of kids were really "cranky" during second half of the day...
the other thing: the kids themselves are also very different...the research/studies do recommend to have naps till kids around 6 years old...but again, some 3 year olds would really need a nap and it is a bit cruel to let them sleep less (THOUGH, 12.30 till 2.30 is a long nap!!! at preschool I used to work kids would wake up at 2.00 PM) but another 3 year old might be sooo ready to even drop a nap...
what I could suggest is to talk to your son/daughters teachers...sincerely, let them tell you their observations...of course teachers do need their lunch break but I am sure if they see and if they are really open about it, they will tell you whether ur child does or does not need a nap! and if they do, then I am sorry to those parents who want some time to themselves but that is kinda part of package we get when we get kids
what I am trying to do with my daughter is to always stick to the routine...so now she is used to it and every time closer to 8 PM, she starts yawning and stuff so thats the time to go to sleep for us and she wakes up at around 7 in the mornings... since birth I would do same routine in the evenings: bath, massage, milk, dim lights...and she knows..its time to sleep...i dont know how it will go later on but i hope she will stay on that track till she is in preschool, even if its hour later, at 9 she will go to sleep is still good...oh, she naps for 1.5 hours every day
thats our "little" share on naps
Yuliya
www.familyfunwithyuliya.com
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Re: Your take on naps at preschool?
we're now experimenting with a 45-minute nap (asking the teachers to wake her up a bit early ... there's at least one other kid in her class that's skipping a nap, so she should have someone to play with).
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Re: Your take on naps at preschool?
My niece and nephew (Chinese/Australian, but raised in a fairly Chinese environment) never had good sleeping patterns and now their sleep cycles are totally out of whack. They're now 10 and 12, respectively, and they're still bouncing around at midnight (on a school night) and refuse to get out of bed until 8am on a school day, or noon on a weekend. I get exhausted just watching them.
Imogen Kandel, beijingkids Managing Editor (Former)
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Re: Your take on naps at preschool?
The other complicating factors are travel across time zone and illnesses - which we are both dealing with, or will be doing in the very near future. Our daughter's napping regimen is going to be a mess for a while ...
Jerry Chan, Editorial Director
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Re: Your take on naps at preschool?
presuming your daughter normally takes a midday nap, you might find travel to distant time zones like the US (where day is night and night is day) not so bad -- merely gradually extend the daytime nap (which will be at night in your new time zone) and shorten the night sleep (which is happening during the day) ...
just don't plan on anything expensive that necessitates a fully alert child during the first week or so. I took my 3-year-old to an afternoon baseball game (at $50 a head) and spent all but the first and last innings with a snoring toddler in my lap
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Re: Your take on naps at preschool?
I like Youliiam's advice about having shorter naps by putting them to bed later, rather than waking them up earlier:
'putting kid for a nap later then other kids worked of course much better then waking up earlier '
I am happy to report, that after a summer of no napping, the teachers told me my kids are only napping about an hour... hope it lasts!!
Regarding jetlag...
Just try really hard to keep her awake and outside most of the first few days in the daytime... and most of all GOOD LUCK!
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Re: Your take on naps at preschool?
Many thanks - that, added with her current cough and sprained wrist makes our impending trip a recipe for exhaustion...
Jerry Chan, Editorial Director
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Re: Your take on naps at preschool?
I had nap time in preschool, but 90 minutes?! I'm pretty sure ours was only about 30 minutes or so, but I can't be sure. This was in the US.
Kara Chin, Managing Editor
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Re: Your take on naps at preschool?
My sons have all done the naps, while personally I think it's ridiculous for adults to take naps I think for children it is fine, the key was my wife let them nap from when they were born so going to school didn't mess with their routine at all. I think the problem for most of you is they never nap then at 3years old you suddenly introduce this nap and it screws the whole system up.
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Re: Your take on naps at preschool?
My four year old naps at preschool and it doesn't seem to make a difference in her sleeping schedule. Bedtime between 8-8:30 and up at 6:30.
Last year my kids went to school in Guangzhou and all the students napped, even in primary school. My eldest hated it. This year she is back to her Beijing primary school and the first thing she said was: Hooray! No more baby naps!
I take my "me time" early in the morning. I get up at 5:30, drink my coffee and watch the city lights go off and the sun come up before the pandemonium of three girls begins an hour later.
I asked the teacher if it would be ok for my daughter to bring some books to look at quietly in case she didn't want to sleep and the teacher was fine with that. I think lots of Chinese teachers also sleep at that time so they really aren't keen on supervising non-nappers.
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