This is entirely frustrating to me, but from the other persons perspective. Let's see if I can address it nicely and I would hope that you all would read this and actually listen.
First of all, daycare providers/daycare workers get absolutely no time for breaks. We can hardly find time to go to the bathroom sometimes. I can only imagine how much it costs to pay hourly wages in those places. I know that I have ZERO dollars left over after bills and my mother does not get paid ANYTHING at all for helping with my daycare children. I try and try and cut the expenses while still offering a decent curriculum.
I will NOT work and be on my feet as many hours per day as I am without some time to chill for awhile. I do try and offer the children quiet things to do. But they will NOT do anything quiet for even 10 full minutes. Seriously, when is the last time you spent any time with 4 year olds when they were not whispering, giggling, and though quiet at first, their whispering escalates to talking and then full on laughing, singing etc. Now take that times say 20 in a room. Do they have that many? I can't stand it with the 4 that I have.
This is what I do. I give the children a quiet activity. The moment they start to talk and act up they get a warning. Then when they do it again they have to lay down. They may have a book on their bed and I don't turn the lights out. But when they continue to talk I take the book away. I never turn the lights out. If they fall asleep at 1 and they don't wake up until 3pm, then they were tired. In fact, I believe with all my 23 years of experience that they are only talking and acting up because they are tired.
Now, have you considered how much sleep your child needs and how much they are getting? The average 4 year old child needs 10-13 hours of sleep per day. Some days may be 10 hours. But more often than not it should be 11 or 12 and maybe even 13. When they don't get enough sleep they act up at night.
Your child is not staying up until near midnight because they are wide awake. They are staying up because they are exhausted! I've tried everything in all these years. I've taken children skating, running, biking, swimming and I've wore their little behinds out. When they get over tired they will sometimes fall asleep fast and still sleep at night. But other times they will sneak, giggle, keep their parents up late and throw tantrums. That's from being too tire.
What do you do when you are tired? I venture to say that if you sit down and watch tv you fall asleep. But if you need to stay awake, you clean house or get up and move somehow. When you are driving and you need to stay awake, you likely get on the phone and call someone. That's how you stay awake. If talking keeps you awake on a long drive, then laying down and babbling is also going to keep them awake. If I shut my mouth and let them play all through nap time, as time goes on they start to be silly, sneak up and give each other grief. They will even sneak off and wake up a sleeping child or pinch or hit someone else that is awake. They do this because they don't want to fall asleep and it's not time for them to run around.
So what do you think happens when I don't let them nap all day? I'll tell you what. By the end of the day they are crabby and then the mom is looking at me like, "What did you do to my kid today?"! They want to know why their poor abused child is sleepy, crabby, and tired. Oh, maybe because they didn't take a nap because the mom won't stop whining about it!
I can tell you that I will NOT wake up a sleeping child often. If I think the parent will be coming early I'll wake them up in just enough time to get them to potty and put on their shoes. If a child is sleepy and they need to sleep, they will sleep. I work my arse off in this daycare. No one can or does pay me what I am worth. I'm not setting myself up for having a house full of angry, frustrated, sleepy children.
There are days when I take the kids out all afternoon and they don't get crabby because I'm taking them out to eat, out to play, etc. BUT, they fall asleep on the way home in my van and then they are really tired and crabby because they didn't nap. AND, all my children are 4 years old.
You don't realize it. But what you are asking is selfish. The worker should not have lied to you and said the children were laying down for an hour. If it's 2, then it's 2. We lay down from 1-3 everyday, except for when we go out. But I am here to tell you that if I am going to take the kids out everyday to something super fun, it's going to be super expensive. Then the parents can pay another 200 per month to cover all the admission fees, skate rentals, bowling fees, bowling shoe rentals, etc.
Suzi
