Lack of daytime sleep in kindergarten is a big problem for most children, especially those over 3-5 years old. Usually quiet time for children is such a sacramental time when you can either quietly chat with each other, or, on the contrary, fool around. Of course, children who refuse to sleep cause inconvenience not only to nannies and teachers, but also to those children who are not at all averse to taking a nap during the day. Additional problems arise from this: educators make complaints to parents even to the point of asking them to take the child out of kindergarten for quiet time. How to teach a child to sleep in kindergarten? This is a question most mothers and educators probably ask themselves.

It is very important to think about this in advance, even before the baby starts attending kindergarten. Surely, parents who have queued up for kindergarten have already had the honor of communicating with teachers; it makes sense to ask teachers what home education methods should be used in advance so that the child does not have problems with sleep in kindergarten in the future. Experts will tell you about the daily routine and in the process of preparing for kindergarten, you will have to change your child’s routine a little, for example, start teaching him to sleep during the day at home at clearly designated hours. Such measures will develop a habit in the baby and the question of how to teach a child to sleep in kindergarten in the future most likely will not arise.

However, if your child is already attending kindergarten and such a problem is acute, then you should immediately begin to solve it.

Teaching a child to sleep in kindergarten is not easy, and often this process does not depend at all on the parents, but on the approach and rigor of the teachers. However, mom and dad are simply obliged to have a conversation with the baby, clarify why he is not sleeping, and try to explain the benefits and necessity of daytime sleep. If your child is young, you may think that conversations are just a waste of time, but this is not the case at all. Kids understand everything perfectly, especially if they try to convey the idea not in an edifying, but in an explanatory tone.

During the conversation, you should also find out the reasons why the child does not want to sleep in kindergarten. It is not uncommon for someone to disturb him or for him to feel uncomfortable or unprotected. In the first case, it is extremely necessary to talk with the teacher. By the way, the process of teaching a child to sleep in kindergarten in any case should be controlled not only by the parents, but also by the teacher. It is she and the nanny who monitor the situation in the children's group, including during quiet time, so it is from them that you should expect an objective assessment of why the baby refuses to sleep.

If there is a lack of comfort or a feeling of insecurity, it is recommended to give the child his favorite toy in kindergarten, say, the one with which he sleeps at home.

If the case is severe and your baby is not just lying quietly with his eyes open, but is disturbing other children, you may have to visit the kindergarten during quiet time and supervise the child. A good way would be to take him to another room and have an educational conversation. To teach a child to sleep in kindergarten, you need to discuss all the nuances with the teachers: for example, try asking them to conduct active games with the children an hour before naptime, and also warn that they will soon have to go to the bedroom.

Don't forget about your sleep schedule on weekends. Try to completely repeat the routine that your baby follows in kindergarten. Perhaps this is the best way that parents can influence their child’s sleep training in kindergarten.

And don’t forget about the favorable and cozy atmosphere at home. Often, a child’s problems with daytime sleep are associated with worries about the turbulent atmosphere prevailing at home.

The first months of attending kindergarten are not easy for all children. Parting with mother, changing the home environment to an unfamiliar kindergarten premises, new faces, new food and food different from home lead the child into a state of confusion and confusion. The child has to obey the routine and rules adopted in the chosen kindergarten. Against the background of general stress, problems with daytime sleep often arise. Teachers complain that the child does not sleep in kindergarten and interferes with other children, and parents simply do not know what to do in this difficult situation.

Why doesn't the baby sleep in kindergarten?

A newborn sleeps up to 20 hours a day; by the age of 2–3 years, the duration of sleep gradually decreases to 12–13 hours. Moreover, this time can be arbitrarily divided depending on the individual characteristics of the psyche, the child’s activity and the influence of the environment. Daytime sleep at the age of three is usually 2-3 hours. And it is simply necessary for rest and restoration of the child’s developing nervous system. Lack of daytime sleep can lead to moody and agitated behavior, decreased interest in games and learning, and even diseases of the nervous system.

Sleep problems in kindergarten can be caused by various reasons:

• a child or in the company of unfamiliar peers;
• the baby is not accustomed to the regime established in the kindergarten;
• A preschooler experiences stress due to attending kindergarten and parting with his parents.

Most often, sleep problems resolve themselves and within a month the child develops the habit of sleeping during the day - fatigue accumulates, kindergarten ceases to be something frightening and alien, and the body gets used to a clear daily routine. If the child just can’t get used to it, cries and asks to be picked up early so as not to sleep in the garden, the parents will need to help him adapt.

How to teach a child to sleep in kindergarten

Daytime sleep helps relieve the child’s nervous tension, which is responsible for learning a huge amount of new knowledge. Therefore, in advance of the kindergarten daily routine, you can significantly reduce the level of stress from the first visits to a preschool institution.

If “quiet hour” is introduced as a rule at home, then the question of how to teach a child to sleep in kindergarten may not arise at all. If already at home you see that it is difficult for your baby to fall asleep during the day, try to keep him busy with reading books or quiet games before bed. For example, offer to feel like a spy who needs to lie silently in the crib so as not to attract the attention of “enemies”. Or ask yourself to read poetry or come up with a fairy tale. You can also lie down with your child, stroking his back or head, humming a lullaby. The main thing is that before going to bed he can calm down and relax - then his rest will be natural and pleasant.

If there is no problem with falling asleep, parents simply need to synchronize the nap time at home with the schedule established in the kindergarten. At first, the child will have difficulty falling asleep at the designated time, and will need to be asked to just lie still. But literally after a couple of weeks you will notice that it is no longer difficult for him to fall asleep at the set hour.

There are often cases when children simply refuse to sleep in the garden, although there are no problems with daytime sleep at home. This is usually due to the fact that the child cannot adapt to new conditions - he is worried and worried, and experiences discomfort. In such a situation, it is important to talk with the preschooler and find out what exactly is bothering him. Here it is necessary to provide psychological support, set the child up for positive emotions and help overcome the fear of temporary separation from parents. It is possible that the child still does not eat in kindergarten due to the same stress. The faster you establish the cause of children's excitement, the faster adaptation to new conditions will occur.

The fact that children who sleep during the day are usually calmer, less excitable, less tired, and even get sick less often than their peers speaks in favor of an afternoon nap. The ability to sleep during the day normalizes the child’s psyche and teaches him to manage his emotions.

Did your child have problems with naps in kindergarten? How did you manage to resolve them? Share your experience with other parents in the comments to the article.

Question: Hello! Please tell me about daytime naps. In our group there are children who have not yet turned 3 years old and who are already 4 years old. My child sleeps at home no more than 1.5 hours during the day. In kindergarten, the time allocated for naps is 3 hours. He wakes up, cries, doesn’t want to sleep anymore, they scold him and force him to sleep more. Because of this, he does not want to go to kindergarten. Tell me what to do in this case.

Lyubov Goloshchapova, child psychologist, answers:

Your child doesn't want to. Where has it been seen to make a person sleep? It's the same as making you love, making you see (not looking), making you understand. Unreal.

Another thing is strange: why do you want this play to continue?

Your child (like every other child) will never be “like everyone else.” Because the concept “like everyone else” is empty. It's just a phrase; in fact, there is no meaning behind it. This expression is used in speech because it can force a person to obey. To put it simply – to manage a person. This is the only purpose of the words “like everyone else.”

Why should I do this? - children often ask. When adults don’t have enough arguments, they say: because everyone does it. And what does this prove? When children grow up, few of them retain the divine ability to continue asking: Why should I do this? - from others and from yourself. The majority follows the path called “like everyone else,” hanging their heads, swallowing all the instructions, resigning themselves to the fact that they are hopeless debtors in all matters, they always owe something. Even the expression is a special “sense of duty.” What kind of feeling is this? And in what place can a person feel it? It makes your back slouch, your shoulders drop, and a heaviness appears in your body, pulling you down toward the ground. Depressing condition.

One can, of course, say that a person without a sense of duty will be irresponsible, frivolous, and will flutter like a butterfly, without straining at all. Yes it is! And this is a wonderful condition. Creative, bright, giving a great mood, excellent well-being, excellent health and overflowing energy - in general, everything is like in children. Some people are afraid of this condition. They come up with the idea that a person without a sense of duty will stop taking care of his loved ones, will not work, etc., but they do not say the most important thing that scares them so much - this person will become free and uncontrolled. That is, it will not have the buttons that manipulators love to press, and the levers that they love to pull. A controlled person is very convenient, he is almost like a biorobot, like a mechanical toy: if he pressed for pity, he received a gift, if he pressed for a sense of duty, he received more. There are many varieties of such buttons and levers, and all of them are a foreign, artificial element in the human body, such as a prosthesis or an implanted electrode. In a word - superfluous.

It is unlikely that anyone would argue that a cat has a sense of duty. But this in no way prevents her from being a wonderful mother, caring and tenderly raising her children, protecting them from any, real or imaginary, danger, raising and teaching them. Does she love her children? Anyone who has seen a cat with kittens knows the answer very well.

In this sense, a person is not much different from a cat. Can a sense of duty make him truly and lovingly care for someone? Can it make you fall in love? Admire? Rejoice? Answer for yourself. It's all fiction. Buttons and levers.

Now let's look at another aspect of your question. There have already been many letters in which parents are trying with all their might to adapt to the circumstances in which they find themselves, although they do not like these circumstances at all. Some are unlucky, as they believe, with the teacher, others are unlucky with the group in the kindergarten, and others are not allowed to live in peace by just one child in the kindergarten. These parents are united by one, in my opinion, strange property: in their letters they never mention the possibility of changing one kindergarten to another or even raising a child outside the kindergarten..

Maybe this is also a manifestation of the “like everyone else” phenomenon?

Not all children go to kindergarten. And maybe it’s your child who needs, absolutely, absolutely needs to spend a lot of time alone with himself or, say, with dad. Everyone has their own path, and this fact can only be respected and recognized if you want to live with joy and pleasure, and not in a constant struggle with circumstances.

How often does the situation develop: a child is taken to kindergarten, but he doesn’t like it there, he cries, gets sick, throws tantrums in the morning. On the other hand, teachers also have little joy from such a baby: they are also unhappy and complain to their parents. Parents get the most bullets: on the one hand, they are horrified by what is happening to the child, on the other hand, they sometimes want to kill all the teachers along with the nannies for their eternal complaints and dissatisfaction (what are they paid for?). And if, in addition, the child is sent to kindergarten so that he can go to a job he doesn’t like, then life generally turns into something incomprehensible. Everyone feels bad. Why is this necessary?

Let's finally change something. Let's stop torturing each other and ourselves. Let's stop being patient and adapting. Let's just begin to live the way we like, as pleasant and easy for us.

You have the right not to be “like everyone else.” You have the luxury of deciding for yourself where to take your child, finding solutions that make your child, and most importantly, you yourself feel great! Simply - live and enjoy it.

In your specific case with daytime naps in kindergarten, I would talk to the teachers (two? or one?). I would explain to them, calmly, without pressure and pathos, that my child does not need sleep for a full 3 hours, that the child himself copes well with how much sleep he needs (eating, going to the toilet), and an indicator of this is good health and good mood when he gets up. Look at their reaction, listen to what they tell you. It is quite possible that you will easily find a common language. And if not, it doesn’t matter either. So this is not your kindergarten. This means that for your baby there is another, very good opportunity that is waiting for him - he can’t wait. Just imagine, she sits, this wonderful opportunity, in a secluded place, and waits for you personally with your child, and dances on the spot with impatience: well, when, when will they finally find me? When will they get tired of clinging to the old, unpleasant things? Come here quickly, I’m here, I’m here!

Most often, a child attending kindergarten gets used to sleeping during the day, so to speak, “for company.”

But kids in older or preparatory groups consider themselves so “adult” that they begin to perceive daytime sleep as something limiting their life activity and, as a result, express a powerful protest.

Often the reasons for children’s refusal to sleep are so different that it can be quite difficult to determine whether it is a child’s whim or his natural feature.

1. An unusual environment for a child can cause not only the child to refuse naps during the day, but also to refuse to attend preschool altogether. The child experiences the first few months in kindergarten in one way or another - for the first time he remains for a long time in an unusual environment and with practically unknown people. It can be very difficult for a child to establish contact with other children - it is precisely such problems that can cause a child to refuse to sleep in kindergarten.
2. Absence of habitual associations associated with falling asleep– from infancy, the child gets used to a certain “ritual”, which the parents strictly observe when putting him to bed. For example, this could be: rocking the baby in your arms; pat on the back; with tea or juice; mandatory presence of mother or one of the adults. Since in kindergarten the child is deprived of all these associations, then, naturally, the usual process of falling asleep is disrupted.
3. Waking up late in the morning, for example, some parents are not against the baby going to bed in the evening at a “convenient” time for him - often later than 22.00. Naturally, the child wakes up much later in the morning. The optimal waking time for 3-6 year old children is about 5-6 hours, and sleep in kindergarten occurs from 13.00 to 15.00-15.30, so the child, waking up in the morning later than 7.00 o’clock, simply does not have time to get tired and, naturally, does not feels neither tired nor desires to rest.
4. On weekends parents often allow the child to take a break from the “harsh” kindergarten regime by allowing him not to sleep during the day.
5. Fear of separation from mother, separation from her (in psychology called separation anxiety) significantly increases the baby’s anxiety and nervous excitability, which prevents the child from preparing for daytime sleep in kindergarten.

Of course, all parents need to remember that a child is not a dog or a kitten, not a toy or a “soldier” who must obey all orders, but a living person with his own desires, feelings, consciousness and mind, although still very small.

Therefore, it is necessary to treat him with understanding and respect, taking into account all his needs and desires, and even more so his characteristics.

It is important to understand that not all cases of stubbornness and refusals of children to do anything are based on fleeting desires to play pranks. Many whims have deeper roots related to the family situation, lack of necessary attention, and sometimes even discomfort or ill health.

Moms and dads need to learn to negotiate with their kids - don’t put pressure on them or force them to do something. It is enough to explain to the child the need to fulfill any order or request, showing appropriate rigor, restraint and, of course, patience. If parents are honest and frank with their child, it will be easier for the child to understand and fulfill their request.

It is necessary to love your children, because they are unusually smart, talented and simply wonderful, and parental love helps the child to fully reveal their best qualities.

To sleep or not to sleep?

is very important and necessary for the full physical and mental development of a child’s growing body.

Kids who are used to sleeping during the day are much more active, sociable and friendly than those kids who refuse to rest during the daytime.

In addition, such children, having physical rest and accumulating energy, adapt to life changes much more easily and absorb information faster.

From a physiological point of view, napping during the day helps the child remove excess cortisol, the stress hormone, from the body. The optimal amount of it in the natural norm provides the baby’s body with the necessary energy, but its excess interferes with sleep. Cortisol has an accumulative property - the less the child sleeps during the day, the higher the level of the hormone, and the more difficult it is to put the baby to bed in the evening. And vice versa, if the child has slept during the day, the easier it is to put him to bed at night. No matter how paradoxical it may sound, but from a scientific point of view, sleep always generates sleep!

According to statistics, sleep is a natural process and a vital necessity for every person, and the need for sleep changes with age. For example, a newborn baby sleeps almost the whole day, being awake for only 4-5 hours. Children aged one to three years should sleep 12-14 hours, but older children, from 3 to 6-7 years old, can sleep less - 10-12 hours. And, of course, 1.5-2 hours of this time still fall on daytime sleep.

Of course, all statistical data are a little average, it is impossible to “fit” a child to certain standards, and you shouldn’t do this.

Some people need a lot of sleep, others much less.

The main criterion for the generally accepted norm of sleep is still considered to be the health of the child, his good mood, cheerfulness and smile.

The need for daytime sleep depends on the temperament of children, the phase of their development (stages of not only physiological, but also psychological maturation), as well as some temporary factors (for example: teething, illness and even weather changes).

There is no need to rush and unambiguously classify a child as a “little sleeper” child - it is always necessary to objectively assess the situation and ask some questions: does the baby sleep enough, does he always wake up in a good mood, does sleep provide adequate rest for the child.

Having answered them, parents can decide whether to put their baby to bed during the day. Lack of sleep is also harmful - in addition to the development of chronic fatigue and nervous system disorders, it can even lead to a delay in the child’s mental development.

Psychologists have concluded that lack of sleep increases the risk of developing attention deficit disorder in a baby, and leads to... But excessive sleep is not beneficial either - babies who sleep a lot and for a long time become lethargic and unfriendly, and many pathological conditions can develop this way. Therefore, parents need to carefully monitor the quality of their child’s sleep and, first of all, their health, and then draw any conclusions.

Is your child ready to cancel naps?

As the baby grows up, his physiological need for sleep decreases significantly - this is a natural process.

The older the child, the easier it is for him to tolerate occasional skipping of naps.

But parents should always remember that refusing to sleep during the day significantly increases the load on their child’s nervous system, which can be expressed in frequent whims, an agitated state, especially in the evening, night awakenings or early rises in the morning.

Several rules that help determine a child’s readiness to give up naps during the day have been determined by psychologists and pediatricians from many countries around the world:

1. The baby remains active and friendly and in a good mood throughout the day.
2. After even a short sleep during the day, the baby has difficulty falling asleep in the evening.
3. Without daytime sleep, the child sleeps peacefully at night and falls asleep well and without whims in the evening.

If parents notice that the baby meets the above signs of readiness to give up daytime sleep, then you should not insist on the need to sleep during the day - it is better to replace the time of daytime rest with other, more active activities, for example: walks in the fresh air; educational games and even watching cartoons.

Replacing types of recreation

If the baby does not attend kindergarten, parents do not have a problem with what to offer him instead of naps.

You can, for example, take your child to various sections or clubs, or just take a walk in the fresh air, if the weather permits; Spend more time communicating with your baby - read books or together.

But if he goes to kindergarten, then the problem of refusing daytime sleep becomes much more acute.

Today there are practically no preschool institutions where children’s daytime sleep would be replaced by other types of their activities, especially for a small group of children (due to physiological characteristics, not all children are ready to completely give up daytime rest).

Parents and teachers involuntarily have a problem that can still be solved using several options:

1. You can pick up your child from kindergarten for nap time and take him to various activities, and then bring him back - after all, in many kindergartens, developmental classes are held after afternoon tea.
2. Together with some parents, whose children also do not sleep during the day, negotiate with the teacher about daytime leisure activities for the children. For example, when all the other children in the group are resting, several children can spend time in the gym, on a walk, or simply playing freely outside the bedroom.

Pediatricians and psychologists advise: when correctly forming their child’s sleep schedule, parents must first of all focus on the baby’s health, his physiological and psychological needs and characteristics.

Video on the topic

Conduct a survey among parents of the senior or preparatory group, and you will learn from most of them that children at home have not slept during the day for a long time. Ask children why they don't like going to kindergarten, and you will hear that one of the main reasons is napping. What if you organize a kindergarten without sleep? This can be done both by the family and in a preschool institution.

When my daughter was about four and a half years old, we started having problems with daytime sleep. It became more and more difficult to lay it down; often the laying process itself took more than two hours. As a result, she fell asleep around four in the afternoon, woke up at six, and went to bed for the night well after midnight. After consulting with my husband, we decided to experiment: not lay it down at all. As a result, by nine o'clock in the evening the child could barely crawl to bed and slept soundly until the morning, and the parents received several hours of time for themselves in the evening. We lived in this mode all summer, but when it was time to return to kindergarten in the fall, the problem again loomed on the horizon. Marta is a very obedient girl, and in the kindergarten even not very obedient children sleep “for company,” so she, as expected, rested for two hours and returned home in the evening. After that, in the evening, pure hell began: the child jumped on the sofas and over the heads of his parents until late at night, and in the morning, without sleep, he did not want to get up at half past seven in the morning. The parents consoled themselves with the thought that the child would get enough sleep in kindergarten, but life in the “we can’t lie down and then we can’t get up” mode strained the whole family. On top of that, I was pregnant, so the late bedtimes and lack of sleep were especially acute.

Kindergarten without sleep: organization by family

After living like this for about a week and realizing that I couldn’t last long in this mode, I started looking for a solution on the Internet. And the first thing I realized: I’m not the only one. Because very few children at 5-6 years old actually still need naps during the day. Each mother solved problems with kindergarten sleep in her own way, but in general there were several options:

Pick up the child from kindergarten, and instead take him to different sections.
Pick up the child after lunch, that is, before naptime. In the afternoon, again, take me to clubs.
Picking up your child after lunch and then bringing him back after bedtime.

Obviously, the first option is suitable for mothers who do not work at all and can devote themselves entirely to the child. The second is for those mothers who work part-time or at home. The third is for the same mothers, but on condition that the kindergarten is located near the house (otherwise you will hardly want to ride back and forth four times a day).

I am a freelance mom, and our kindergarten is a five-minute walk away, so the third option seemed to me the most successful. In our kindergarten, various classes are often held in the afternoon: choreography, English, and if I picked up my daughter after lunch, she would miss them. Secondly, the extra two hours to work every day was very important to me.

We lived in the “pick up after lunch and bring back after sleep” mode for an entire school year, and here are the benefits it gave our family:

To mom:
The problems with getting to bed at night have gone away - my daughter falls asleep at about 21:00 and sleeps soundly for 10 hours;
In the morning, my daughter wakes up without an alarm clock at half past seven and says: “Mom, get up, it’s time to go to kindergarten!”;
Time again appeared for evening communication with my husband or for an additional couple of hours of sleep;
After the working day was divided into three parts: work (9-12), daytime communication with my daughter (12.30-15), work again (15.30-18), it became easier to plan the day, I began to get more done.

To my daughter:
Martha is very attached to her mom and dad, and being alone all day, even at five years old, was still difficult for her. The opportunity to spend several hours with parents during the day reduced the psychological burden, and the kindergarten began to be perceived more positively.
If there was no strong wind or rain, we spent almost all of the kindergarten sleep time outside. This is a hundred times healthier for your health than lying in a stuffy bedroom with twenty children.

At the beginning of the new school year, the problem of sleep in kindergarten again affected our family. I already had a baby in my arms, so going to kindergarten four times a day became simply difficult. And then I decided to discuss the problem with the parents of our group and with the management of the kindergarten. After all, Nikitin also suggested making daytime naps optional in kindergarten and replacing bedrooms with sports corners, so why not try?
To organize a group of sleep-deprived children on duty, you need to do the following:

Make a list of parents who don't want their children to sleep during the day. If there are two older age groups in the kindergarten, there is a chance that there will be at least 5-7 applicants.
Discuss which caregivers will provide nap time with children for an additional fee. Decide how much additional duty teachers should be paid for additional work and how much each parent should contribute.
Decide what the children will do during nap time. For example, if the weather is good, organize a walk during sleep; if the weather is bad, spend time in the gym, which is still empty during the day. I was against additional activities during sleep, since the load in the kindergarten is already quite heavy, so I wanted the children to spend this time walking and playing freely.

The most important thing is that this option is no longer suitable only for stay-at-home mothers and those working at home. Families where parents are at work all day were also able to participate in the “kindergarten without sleep” experiment. Overall, both parents and children were satisfied. It turned out that there were children in the group who did not sleep even in kindergarten and suffered, forced to lie in bed for two hours. After the experiment began, parents noted that their children began to go to kindergarten more willingly, sleep more soundly at night, and it became easier for them to get up in the morning. And a month later, the number of people wishing to take part in our experiment increased, due to which the payment for duty teachers from each family became less.