Managing rest time

[megs_95]

My room is 2-3 year olds, most are 3, and some don't need a sleep any more. Problem is, the children who don't sleep are (for the most part) the more difficult children and getting them to listen is a struggle. No matter which variety of activities I set out, they want to talk and yell and make noise with the toys - so much so that it is waking the others or preventing them from sleeping. It's especially difficult with our special needs children, who really need a sleep but are so sensitive to every little sound that it's becoming a huge struggle to get them to sleep (and keep them asleep).

How can we manage this? My boisterous non-sleepers need to be entertained and somehow kept quiet, but my sleepers need their rest!

[Lorina]

I had the same problem... so I joined with the nursery and had my toddlers sleep with the older babies (since they all slept) within the nursery room and the rest of the non sleepers spent that time doing quiet activities. We also took them outside under the verandah for quiet activities which really helped rather than having them inside during rest time. In regards to ratio it worked well as 2 educators was with the non sleepers, while one was with the sleepers....

Maybe something like this could work,

,
L.A

[megs_95]

unfortunately we don't have the space in the younger room to take my sleepers, they already have 20 children on beds in the room below and another 10-15 would be impossible. I do like the verandah idea but since we do lunch breaks through rest time there's often only one staff member in the room, and we couldn't properly supervise the sleepers from the verandah.

Another issue at play is that some of the non-sleepers parents still request for them to be resting on beds. There's very few children who's parents have said they no longer need a bed at all. So I have some non-sleepers on their beds, and some not. Very frustrating! Trying to find a balance that suits everyone is proving difficult...

[Lorina]

Yeah I forgot to mention before the children were allowed off their beds they had a mandatory rest time of 30 minutes. This enables the sleepers to get to sleep while the non sleepers got to rest for awhile. Sometimes some of the non-sleepers will even fall asleep.

How about dividing the room up. Sleepers down the end (the quiet end) and the non sleepers at the other. Although this could be hard as the non-sleepers may begin talking to one another...

Maybe you could try some activity packs for the non-sleepers that they can complete on their beds. Each "pack" can contain a story, a puzzle, colouring, worksheets (tracing etc), beading, colouring pencils etc. Just a few things that can keep them quiet rather than trying to get them off their beds. You can just use a plastic sleeve or even a plastic bag or shoe box and fill it up with things you already have at the centre to use. Search our "Printables" for some ideas. You can explain to the non sleepers what they are and if they talk loudly their activity pack will be removed and they have to lay quietly until they can show they can be quiet to get them back... Also if you do decide to do this you should only be giving the activity packs once the sleepers are asleep.

Hope this helps,

,
L.A