Oakland preschools with flexibility on nap time?
Our daughter is 2.5 and started preschool last October. During the December holidays when school was closed, our daughter stopped napping. I have been dreading the nap drop for some time but it actually went really smoothly - she does fine all day and then just goes to bed early (around 7pm). It's been a relief for our family because sleep has always been a challenge and she has very low sleep needs generally. But with the nap drop she sleeps sooo much better at night overall!
Now that she's back in preschool we are learning that her school isn't really able to offer any flexibility at nap time (understandably). I know it's state law for providers to provide some amount of rest during the day and that this is an important time for teacher breaks. At her school the kids have to lie down for 2 hours, 12pm - 2pm. If they don't sleep, that's ok, but they have to remain lying down on their cot that whole time. Naturally our daughter will fall asleep at school and usually sleeps about 1.5 hours there (but is still not napping on the weekends). As a result, her nighttime sleep on the weekdays is challenging; the worst thing is that she'll wake up in the middle of the night and be wide awake for a couple of hours. It's clear to us that she doesn't "need" to nap any more, but I know it's tough for a school to accommodate this!
I am feeling at a loss. I felt like we finally cracked this current sleep phase with the nap drop, and feel hugely sad that we might have many more sleepless nights in our future. I've seen other posts from parents describing their preschools having more flexibility at nap time; for example, kids lie down for 20-30 minutes and then if they're not asleep they can play quietly in a corner or even go outside. None of these posts named names of schools, though. So my question is: is anyone aware of any preschools in Oakland (or Berkeley) that allow more flexibility at nap time? Or has anyone faced a similar issue with their kid?
I also recognize that since she's only 2.5, it might be tough to find a preschool that can offer flexibility for this age in particular. But I'm curious to see what might be out there.
Thanks so much for reading.
-tired mom
Parent Replies
I so feel this! I don't have anything to offer other than our family experienced this with our daughter at 2.5. It was so rough and I was so delirious with anger that we considered leaving school because she was up until 10/11pm every night that she slept at school. We were going to pull her out of school at naptime and have her home with us. The pandemic happened and we got to do it our way! Then same thing happened when she went back to school 6 months later: they would apply so much "sleep pressure": rubbing her back, giving her an eye mask, etc. We begged the school to stop, full stop, trying to get her to sleep. Let her look at books and just stare at the wall! They eventually relented and she would tell everyone who came at her with a backrub: "I don't sleep". Somehow we made it through. I really do think it was her telling them that she would not sleep and giving a clear boundary that made them back off a bit. I hope it works out!
My daughter "graduated" from Arbor Preschool (the Rockridge campus) last year and was a "no napper" for at least her final year. When she was the only kid who didn't nap--which was the case for a long time--she did have to lay on the cot for the whole nap time, is my memory. Then they started giving her books on her cot, so she just had quiet time turning pages. When there were more kids who had outgrown their naps, they transitioned so that the napping kids were in one room and the "no nappers" were in another.
Don't quote me on this, but it was evolving and there was a balance struck between ensuring that she had the opportunity to fall asleep if she could take it (and the teachers could take a break!) and recognizing that kids grow out of naps as they get ready for kindergarten and if there's a little herd of them they could be accommodated.
I loved our experience at Arbor!
It sounds like your school just doesn't have any "resters" as opposed to nappers? Many schools will offer a nap but allow students to get up off their cots after 20 minutes or so to go play if they aren't napping anymore, but the school has to be staffed at a level that makes that possible. For kids who just flat out don't nap (not uncommon by 4!) it's simple, they just lie down for 20 minutes to let the nappers get started. When our kid was ready to drop nap (i.e., nap wrecked night sleep but she'd still fall asleep if you made her lie down), our school let her read books on the cot and stay sitting up so she wouldn't fall asleep during that 20 minute period.
I believe most of the preschools we considered have similar policies, including Monteverde and Duck's Nest, but I'm not sure. Will also message our preschool's name.
We've had a similar story with both of our kids so far - low sleep needs, dropped naps around 3 at home but still napped at preschool until 4.5. It did make it very challenging, especially since there was a long period where the younger one napped and the older one did not, which meant they needed different bedtimes despite sharing a room.
I had a slightly different interpretation, which was that if they napped at preschool they "needed" it, even if that meant they would wake up during the night. Young kids don't necessarily have the same schedule for their sleep needs as adults, and none of ours went in a straight line to being awake for a solid 14 hours and then sleeping a solid 10 hours at night - there were lots of schedule changes along the way that didn't align with what we typically think of as a normal sleep schedule for an adult. So I never pushed to have her preschool prevent her from napping or anything like that.
That said, their preschool does not require them to lie down for 2 hours - they could get up and play quietly if they wanted. Our school would give us a nap log for the whole class, and in the 2yo class if I remember correctly, about 2 out of 12 students did not nap; then that number increased each year until about half the kids had consistently stopped napping in the 4yo class. I appreciated that they didn't push naps and there was a lot of flexibility - obviously different kids have different needs. This is at Shu Ren International School (in Berkeley).
But as a note of caution, my daughter will still sleep at nap time at preschool even though she has the option to get up, and even though she never naps at home. The preschool sleep environment is SO different from home - there is a lot of peer pressure to lie down, the kids have their routine and their "spot" and special nap pad, etc. Your kid might be like this too even at a more permissible preschool - you never know!
Grand Lake Montessori has mixed age primary classes with kids from age 2.5-5. as the kids age, they eventually drop the nap and so there is a group of "non nappers" that do other activities while the younger ones nap.
Hi! We just visited 2 preschools that described a nap setup similar to what you're describing: naps for kids who nap, quiet play for others. I'm not sure if there are any regulations around the ages of kids in the groups, but that wasn't the impression I got. Both schools are in Albany: Albany Preschool Coop and Albany Children's Center. According to their websites, they generally take kids when they're a little older (more like 2.75), but it might be worth contacting them to discuss your situation. Both seemed to us like nice places for a kid to go to school.
The Berkeley School would accommodate this, they are always asking if we want our daughter to be a rester or napper.