Managing sleep in childcare

Starting childcare changes everything about sleep. The cot becomes a mat, the nap is now in a room with other children, and the wind-down routine you’ve spent months building at home doesn’t translate to a centre with its own rhythm and educators. Then there’s the regression that often arrives with the transition itself, when an unsettled day in a new environment shows up at 2am.

To make sense of what’s really happening in those first weeks, Care for Kids spoke to Kate, founder of Babysomnia. Kate completed a PhD in Sleep Psychophysiology at the University of Melbourne and postdoctoral fellowships at Stanford Research Institute and Harvard Medical School. Her interest is the gap between what sleep research shows and what parents are told, which she describes as a space where families "are often given conflicting advice that’s either overly rigid or completely unsustainable." That gap is loudest at childcare time, where parents arrive with advice from grandparents, sleep books, parenting forums, and now educators, and not all of it agrees.

Why childcare often turns up the volume on the “stuck” feeling

When Kate talks about the most common sleep struggles she sees, she points less to the symptoms than to the feeling underneath them. The most common thread, in her view, isn’t the night waking or the rocking-to-sleep or the early rising; it’s the feeling of being stuck. Parents arrive having tried multiple approaches that haven’t worked, and many have been told, by someone, somewhere, that they’re "creating bad habits," which adds a layer of anxiety on top of the sleep deprivation.

Childcare amplifies that stuck feeling. The strategies that worked at home stop working when a child is also napping somewhere else with someone else, and parents start to wonder whether they should be doing what the centre does, or whether the centre is doing what they do. The honest answer is usually neither. The two environments are different, and a child can sleep well in both without one approach having to win.

The biggest sleep myth, and why it matters when childcare starts

The biggest myth that Kate would like parents to stop believing is that responding to your child will "ruin" their sleep. There’s a persistent idea, she explains, that supporting a child to sleep, whether through feeding, holding, or being present, creates long-term dependency. In reality, she says, sleep is a developmental skill that evolves over time, and responsiveness doesn’t prevent independence; it builds the foundation for it.

This matters enormously at childcare time. Parents are often told (sometimes by well-meaning educators, sometimes by sleep advisers, sometimes by their own anxious midnight self) that they need to harden their approach at home so it "matches" the centre. The pressure is to stop responding, stop holding, stop feeding to sleep. Kate’s research-backed view is that responsive support at home doesn’t undermine the independence a child is building at care.

There’s a related myth worth knowing during the childcare transition, when sleep often regresses. The idea that "sleeping through the night" means an uninterrupted block of 10 to 12 hours isn’t how sleep actually works, Kate notes. She explains all humans wake between sleep cycles, and for babies and toddlers, sleeping through is more about the ability to resettle than the absence of waking altogether. The goal in the transition window isn’t to remove support overnight, but to gradually shape it in a way that feels sustainable for the family. 

If your child started childcare two weeks ago and is waking more at night, the aim isn’t to stop the waking. It’s to support them through the change without rebuilding habits you’ll later need to undo.

Why centre naps and home naps can look so different

This is the question Kate is asked most often, in different forms: why does my child nap fine at care but resist at home, or sleep beautifully at home and refuse to nap at care? Her answer comes back to one principle, which is that the way a child falls asleep at the start of a sleep period tends to shape what they need when they wake from it.

The same principle applies during the day. A child who falls asleep at care on a mat, in a room with other children, with lights down and quiet music and an educator nearby, has been shaped by that specific set of conditions. At home, they have a different set: their cot, their room, you, your routine. Two different sleep onset environments produce two different patterns. It isn’t that one is working and one isn’t. The conditions are different, so the sleep is different.

That doesn’t mean parents can’t influence the home version. Kate’s advice on this is gentle and incremental; even a small adjustment, like reducing the level of input or introducing a consistent wind-down routine, can start to shift the pattern. A wind-down routine at home that doesn’t try to mimic the centre, but holds its own consistent shape, gives a child two predictable sleep environments rather than two competing ones.

What changes by age: from baby room naps to kinder mat time

Sleep at childcare looks different in every room, and so does Kate’s advice. For babies, she says, the focus is on rhythms, sleep pressure, and supporting regulation. With toddlers, it becomes more about boundaries, predictability, and navigating separation awareness. For older children, sleep is often influenced by behavioural patterns, anxiety, or bedtime dynamics.

That progression maps almost exactly onto the rooms themselves. The baby room is built around individual rhythms and sleep cues. The toddler room introduces structured group sleep on mats, where predictability and separation become central. The kinder room is where older sleep dynamics, including resistance and bedtime negotiation, become more visible because children can finally voice them. Kate’s broader point holds across all of them: sleep isn’t just something we train, it’s something we build through both physiology and experience. 

A child’s sleep at care builds over weeks and months of repeated experience, and rarely arrives on day one. That isn’t a sign anything is wrong.

For the parent reading this at 2am in the first month of care

The early weeks of childcare are often the hardest, sleep-wise. New environment, new educators, new bugs, new separation. Sleep regresses in ways that feel permanent at 2am. What Kate would say to that parent is that nothing about this moment means you’re doing it wrong. Sleep deprivation, she notes, has a way of making everything feel urgent and permanent, but most sleep challenges are both common and changeable. You don’t need to fix everything tonight; even small shifts, repeated consistently, create meaningful change over time. Childcare transition sleep is, by its nature, temporary. The thing to protect in this window is not a perfect routine but the parent’s capacity to keep showing up calmly.

When is the disruption normal, and when is it worth seeking support?

A common worry at childcare time is whether the sleep changes are part of the transition or a sign of something bigger. Kate’s answer doesn’t hang on age. Sleep, she says, doesn’t suddenly become important at a certain age; it’s relevant from the beginning. The trigger to seek support, in her view, is when sleep "feels unsustainable," which she defines as frequent overnight waking that’s impacting parental wellbeing, difficulty settling, or genuine uncertainty about what to do next. It’s less about a specific age, she says, and more about the level of strain on the family.

A useful test for childcare-transition sleep is the strain test. If the disruption is a wave the family is moving through, it’s likely part of the adjustment. If it’s a wave the family is drowning in week after week, it’s worth talking to a sleep professional, a GP, or the centre itself, who may have observed daytime patterns that explain what’s happening at home.

Why sleep is a whole-family thing, especially when childcare enters the picture

Kate’s final point is the one most parents need to hear during the childcare transition, even when it isn’t the quick fix they were hoping for. Sleep, she says, doesn’t exist in isolation; it’s often a reflection of the broader family dynamic. A child’s sleep is shaped by parental capacity, consistency, emotional climate, and what’s realistically sustainable day to day.

Starting childcare changes that dynamic. There’s a new rhythm, new logistics, a working parent or both parents adjusting, and a child processing a major change. Sleep is going to reflect all of that. Kate’s reframe is the one that gives parents permission to ease up on themselves.

Perfect sleep isn’t the goal, and it isn’t realistic for most families.

When sleep improves in a way that feels aligned and sustainable, she says, the benefits ripple outward. Parents have more emotional capacity, relationships feel easier, and children are typically more settled and regulated during the day. The version of childcare sleep that families can sustain is the one worth aiming for, not the version that looks tidy on paper.

What to ask your childcare centre about sleep

How a centre answers these tells you a lot about how they actually work day to day, more than any glossy brochure will. And when you're ready to start shortlisting, our directory and calculators on Care for Kids might be useful to have open.

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FAQ

Why does my child sleep at childcare but not at home (or the other way around)? 

Different sleep environments produce different sleep patterns. A child who falls asleep at care on a mat with other children, low lights, and music has been shaped by that exact set of conditions. At home, the conditions are different (their cot, their room, you, your routine), so the pattern is too. Neither version is broken. Holding a consistent home routine, rather than copying the centre, helps the home pattern settle over a few weeks.

Will responding to my child at night make it harder for them to settle at childcare? 

No. Babies and toddlers are capable of falling asleep in one set of conditions at care and a different set at home. Responding to your child overnight at home doesn't undo their ability to self-settle on a mat in a room of other children during the day. The two contexts are shaped by their own routines, not by each other.

How many weeks does the childcare sleep regression usually last? 

Most families see the worst of it in the first three to four weeks, with things settling over six to eight weeks as the child adjusts to the new environment, educators, and routine. Children who are also catching back-to-back illnesses (common in the first few months of care) can take longer to find a steady rhythm. If the disruption stretches past the two-month mark with no signs of improvement, it's worth seeking a professional opinion.

Is it okay to feed or hold my child to sleep during the first weeks of childcare? 

Yes. The transition to care is a stressful time for a child, and feeding, holding, or cuddling to sleep at home during this window is supportive, not regressive. The aim during a transition is not to drop sleep habits, but to maintain connection through the change. Once your child is settled at care, you can gradually return to your previous home routine if you want to.

Should I tell my childcare centre about my child's sleep needs? 

Yes. Educators can usually accommodate individual sleep cues, comfort items, and rough nap timing, especially in the baby and toddler rooms. Sharing what works at home gives them a starting point and signals that sleep matters to you, which tends to lead to more detailed communication about how each day's naps went. The conversation works best as ongoing dialogue rather than a one-time briefing at orientation.