![]() This list is just a starting point for you. They’ll also be bored before the 1.5-2 hour time is over.) What are quiet activity options for rest time? (More than likely, if it is in the room with your kid, they won’t rest at all since they’ll play the whole time. I highly recommend keeping this smaller bin of activities with you until that first 30-40 minute timer goes off. Once a week, I pull out 3-4 options, rotate with the previous week’s choices, and place these into a smaller bin. This large bin is stored out of reach from my son throughout the day. I found it helpful to gather many quiet time activities all into one large bin over a weekend. One way to keep this rest time successful is to limit the choices you give kids each day and keep rotating items. How do I keep my kid engaged the whole rest time? At this point, set another timer for 1-1.5 hours to let your child know when rest time is over, and they can leave their nap area. Even though they aren’t sleeping, it is time you can rest or catch on work without needing to respond to them. When that time is up, then they have options they can choose to play independently and quietly in their nap area. Make sure you have clear expectations about where they need to stay (in bed, in their room, etc.) for these 30-40 minutes. A kitchen timer or wake-up clock are both great ways to help children see how much time they need to rest quietly at first. A really helpful way to help young children to understand time is to make it visual. You can recreate this same expectation at home! It won’t happen on day one (or maybe day five) just keep explaining this new routine consistently. After 30-40 minutes, the non-sleepers needed something to keep them entertained and as quiet as possible. This gave teachers time to assist some children in falling asleep in a (mostly) quiet environment. Just a stuffed animal, soothing music, and their imaginations as they stayed on their required nap cot. When I was teaching, we asked children to rest their bodies for 30-40 minutes at the beginning of rest time. ![]() As kids grow, they don’t need as much sleep, hence the nap time to rest time transition. What is more important is how much sleep they are getting in 24 hours check here for recommendations. ![]() Typically, nap time is 1.5-2 hours, depending on the developmental age of the child. This is a super common transition in childcare that has teachers continually coming up with new ideas to keep kids quietly engaged while their classmates’ sleep. So your little one is refusing to sleep, and you’re not ready to give up nap time? There is a happy medium: Rest Time! What’s the big difference? Rest time has no expectation of sleep.
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