Nanny share and nap schedule

[Anonymous]

Nannies, how do you handle taking care of two babies with different schedules? So far, both babies took 2 naps at the same time. Now we are transitioning 14 month old baby to one nap. The younger one ( almost 12 months old) is not ready for 1 nap yet. What do you do? If I keep them on their own schedules when one wakes up, the other goes down.

[Anonymous]

Yeah thats what you have to do for a few months.
I’d let one of the younger child’s naps be in a stroller or car seat now and again. So you can still go out for walks etc while the older one us awake.

[Anonymous]

I am assuming that you are doing a Nannyshare.

You likely will have to have them sleep at different times until the 12MO transitions their two naps to one nap.

This will make things a little challenging for probably at most a few mos., but hopefully then you can have them both on the same nap schedule.

Good luck!

[Anonymous]

mine took afternoon nap always at the same time, even when younger one took 2 naps, so I always had a break in the afternoon. Otherwise, you burn out after couple weeks with no break

[Anonymous]

When this happened at our share, we had the older one stay on two naps a bit longer than he needed to, and the younger one moved to one nap a bit sooner than she needed to, and so there was only about a month when they were on different schedules.

That's a hard time for two reasons - 1) it's hard to get the babies outside at all and 2) the nanny doesn't get a break.

To solve #1, the nanny started taking them on a quick walk around the neighborhood at about 4:30 when they were both up most days - just 20 mins or so for some fresh air.

As far as #2, we (parents of the older baby) had the nanny do "me time" for our baby (playing in his crib with toys alone for 30 mins, but of course there's a monitor) during one of the younger baby's naps. That way, the nanny had at least 30 mins to rest and check her phone and eat her lunch in peace. I do think that's critical - can also work if the naps overlap a bit. For example, 9:30-11:30 and 2:30-4:30 naps for the younger child, and 12:30-3 or 3:30 naps for the older means that the nanny gets at least 2:30-3 for a break. If that means adjusting a baby's "ideal" schedule by 30 mins or so, that's what you do. Nannies NEED at least 30 mins every day for a break.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:mine took afternoon nap always at the same time, even when younger one took 2 naps, so I always had a break in the afternoon. Otherwise, you burn out after couple weeks with no break

I'm the PP who dealt with this in my son's share - this is unrealistic when one is about to move off two naps and one is just starting one nap. When a kid is about to move from two naps to one, the second nap is late - definitely starting after 2pm. And when a kid just moved to one nap, it needs to start early, at more like noon. Having them line up at this stage is not a reasonable solution.

This does work when you have an older toddler and a baby - we've got that right now, with my baby sleeping 2:30-4:30 in the afternoon, and my 3 year old sleeping 2-4 (so pretty close to overlapping). But with kids a couple months apart, this will not work.

[Anonymous]

PP, a lot depends on a kid's schedule. My older toddler in a share was a late riser, so he would be napping from about 1:15-3:45 when started 1 nap schedule, while my younger toddler in a share was a very early riser and would just nap for 40 min in a stroller while getting to the playground, and afternoon nap was from about 2-4:15, so I always had good overlap in pm. Take years of experience of course, which I have.