Originally Posted by Unregistered:
Really?? When I pay someone for a service I don't expect to have to edit my families daily life for this service. I do not feel that waking up at 4am is a good solution. But good try.
That would STILL be disrupting my son's sleeping schedule. The big problem is that I want an in-home daycare that will allow my four year old to stay awake during your break time. When I was searching for an in-home daycare that would allow this, I did find providers that were willing to let my son go without the unnecessary nap. But there were other things I did not like. (Food provided, dirty home, too many kids, etc). I could never find one that I liked that didn't have the nap policy for older kids. I've settled on a center due to this, I'm happy with it. I would've been happier with a great in-home provider that met all of my/my child's needs, but was unable to find one. I came to this forum because I wanted to really question the nap thing. I really wanted to know why providers take these long breaks. I really wanted to know why I had to resort to putting my son in a center.
When I was doing IHDC all the kids took a nap - but it was never more than 2 hours total. And it was not a "2 hr break" for me either! Typically I spent a good hour or longer just cleaning up (if you have never cared for 5-6 or more kids at a time you don't realize how long it can take to clean up after lunch!), recording details of the kids' day, taking a chance to eat for ME, pee, etc! Usually if I was lucky I may have ended up with about a 10-15 min break. Regarding letting kids who are older stay up - sometimes it is not an issue of just letting the kid do something quiet or watch tv. My home is small - if the tv was on in my living room it would likely be disruptive to the children sleeping. For some kids who still nap & are older if "Tommy" is watching tv they will want to also. Another issue is if one child is up it's hard for the provider to really have anytime to herself. I had one mom who insisted (in the last 2 weeks of school) that her preschool daughter who had napped consistently & easily at my home the whole school year stop napping. She wanted me to let her watch a movie or do puzzles, etc. I was okay with it (the girl was 4 1/2) but the issue was the child would fall asleep everyday despite my efforts to "keep her awake!". She'd be sitting on the couch looking at books or doing puzzles & would fall asleep. I think that in a home daycare it is hard to do this (find someone who will let the kids stay up) because in most cases providers are working alone with no outside help. If you could walk a week in your provider's shoes you'd understand why she needs 1-2 hours "break" & in most cases the kids DO need the nap!