April 15, 2026
Daycare Sleep Made Simple: Podcast Episode #338
If you’re preparing your baby for daycare—or already navigating unpredictable naps—you are not alone.
In this episode, we’re joined by certified pediatric sleep coach Allison Egidi, founder of Sleep and Wellness Coach, who has helped over 1,000 families improve their child’s sleep.
We dive into how daycare environments impact sleep, why naps can look completely different outside the home, and how to support your baby through the transition without undoing all your hard work.
You’ll learn:
- Why babies and toddlers often sleep differently at daycare vs. home
- How structure, routine, and even peer influence affect naps
- Practical ways to prepare your baby before starting daycare
- How to communicate effectively with caregivers about sleep
- What to do when naps fall apart (without spiraling)
This episode is your roadmap to helping your baby feel secure, well-rested, and supported—no matter where they sleep.
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Hello, hello! This is Kristin Revere with Ask the Doulas, and I am thrilled to chat with Allison Egidi today. She is a sleep and wellness and pediatric sleep coach, and her business is actually Sleep and Wellness Coach, LLC. Allison is the host of the How Long Til Bedtime? Podcast. Her passion is helping parents put together their child’s unique sleep puzzle so the entire family can get the sleep they need to thrive. Our topic today is helping your baby prepare for and adjust to daycare sleep.
Welcome, Allison!
Thanks so much for having me! I’m looking forward to chatting today.
Yes! And this is a topic, as I mentioned before, that I have yet to cover on Ask the Doulas. So many of our doula clients and listeners have so many questions about that transition to daycare or even to other childcare; could be a grandparent’s home if they’re caregiving or even having a nanny, someone other than the parent taking care of the infant.
And all three of those are quite unique situations.
Exactly! But we’ll start with daycare. I would love to hear your top tips in making that transition.
Absolutely. It’s safe to say that about 90% of the families I work with send their children to daycare. Over the last ten years, I’ve spent a lot of time working with families, and the first question that I think comes up is, should they be doing something specific to prepare their child to sleep in group childcare settings? So they will often say, should I not have them nap in their dark room? Or should I have noise going on to prepare them? And my first tip is always that your child is going to be set up for the most success sleeping at daycare if they go into that with being well rested. If they have good sleep habits at home – which sometimes, babies are starting there as early as 12 weeks, so they may not have good sleep habits just yet. But if they are going in rested, it’s helpful. So I do recommend an ideal sleep environment at home. And I don’t think we can really prepare our kids to sleep well in a group setting if it’s not kind of their natural inclination. There are absolutely things we can do to make it easier for them. My number one tip is protect their sleep environment at home, and do that before daycare, during daycare, all the things.
That makes sense. And it can be such a big transition to go from that quiet nursery to a daycare center where there are multiple kids napping at different times. I do love your tips for creating some structure and normalcy. And certainly, it can be a bit more challenging in a group environment.
Yeah, I think one thing – I just think back to when I took my oldest to daycare, and she was not sleeping well. She’s the whole inspiration for me doing a career change and ending up in sleep coaching. But I was doing the whole thing of, oh, my gosh, these women have to know more than me about sleep, and surely they’re going to fix my sleep problems. I was really hanging my hat on that. And not only did they not fix my sleep problems, it got worse, because she didn’t sleep well at home, and she was not sleeping well in the group setting. And what I realize now looking back is that they are not sleep experts, the vast majority of them, and it’s unreasonable for us to give them usually a 4:1 ratio, like four new babies, and say, “I hope you know how to teach them all to sleep, even though they all have unique needs.”
The other big tip I have for parents is to provide the daycares with some guidance, and I like to say guidance within reason because we want to be realistic that they often do have a 4:1 ratio, or at least more than 1:1, and if we’re too prescriptive, it may not feel doable to the care providers. But if you provide some guidance, I tend to find that the vast majority of daycares are incredibly grateful for some guidance from the parents. The guidance I usually recommend is around offering them timing guidance. So if they’re under four months and you’re still using wake windows, or even if you haven’t been prescriptive about it, loosely giving them some wake windows. So maybe you’re saying, “Hey, could you try to have them nap every 90 minutes or so?” not dependent on how long that nap was. And then once you get to the 20 weeks and over point, I really like to give 30 minute start windows. So it could be, “Could you try to get him down for a nap between 9:00 and 9:30? Can you try to get him down for nap two between 12:00 and 12:30? Can you try to get him down for a nap between 3:45 and 4:15?” That gives them guidance and flexibility. So I think that can be a real game changer, because if they’re just following sleepy cues, a lot of babies will get stuck in that 20 to 30 minute nap rut because they’re often showing sleepy cues, and then there isn’t the right balance of timing and pressure. It gets a little clunkier.
That makes sense. So it sounds like giving a schedule over a full sleep plan for them to implement would be an easier way to get the staff on board with some of your wishes for napping?
Absolutely. And the other thing that parents often ask me about is, okay, let’s say they have a baby who puts themselves to sleep at bedtime and puts themselves to sleep at naps for home, and what should they do with daycare? Should they be instructing the daycare to not pop the pacifier in, to not rock them to sleep, to not rub their back? There’s this fear sometimes with our independent sleepers that we’re going to create a bad habit, and I really like to reassure parents that this is an example where babies are so stinking smart. And they can differentiate how sleep is handled by these care providers in this group setting versus how sleep is handled at home. This is different than a nanny situation, which we can touch on if you’d like to, but with the daycare setting, I like to be fair and reasonable with our babies, and trying to take a nap in, let’s say, an infant room with lots of different schedules is kind of like you or I trying to lay down on a couch in the middle of a party happening in our living room and taking a nap. It’s a really big ask. I encourage parents to empower the care providers to provide extra support to help their babies get to sleep. So that could be popping the pacifier in, giving them a nice little jiggle on their chest or rubbing their back, or even if they have to, if the baby is really stimulated in that group setting, it’s okay if they ultimately have to rock them to sleep and transfer them to the crib. So I also like to provide some reassurance to parents that the care providers at daycare can provide extra support if your baby needs it, because it’s a stimulating place to try to nap. And they can still maintain independent sleep at home if that’s something that they are prioritizing and that they want to have.
So you can have a completely different routine at home than daycare?
Yes. I can really only think of two babies I’ve worked with, out of well over a thousand, where it started to become clear that how sleep was handled at daycare was making sleep at home more challenging. So the very vast majority of babies will start to understand, this is how sleep is happening at daycare. This is how sleep is happening at home. And you see it as kids get older. You hear about it with toddlers. Like, they’re sleeping beautifully at 18 months on this cot for their nap at school, and then they’re just a total disaster at home and they don’t want to nap, because they just differentiate how sleep is being handled at these two different places.
Makes sense! So you might have a sound machine and the blackout shades or blinds at home, and it might be a completely different environment, and that’s okay?
Yeah! I mean, there’s only so much we can control in daycare. I do say with that, as well, that we sometimes can provide some guidance, depending on the set up, of noticing something they could tweak or a blind they could close midday. Sometimes they can make some adjustments. But otherwise, it is just your child adjusting to that environment. And their naps may never be as good at daycare as they are at home, and that’s just a good reason to make sure you’re able to prioritize their home naps on the weekends so that we’re refilling their sleep tank and they go into Monday well rested. But if you have a baby who’s not napping well at daycare, even after giving them a schedule to work with, then I always say a rescue bed time is the next best tip I can give you, and that is trying to get them to bed as early as possible, which I know is a very big ask for working families. For example, I used to get home at 6:00 p.m. with my girls, and after we figured out my oldest daughter’s sleep, the priority was always to make sure that they were in bed by 7:00. And that was a game changer for her, because then she got a lot more sleep at night, and she made up for some of her missed daytime sleep. So that’s another really helpful tip for parents if their child is having trouble adjusting, or once they adjust, they still don’t sleep at long at daycare. Put them to bed early so they can make up for some of that missed day sleep.
Great tip. Any other tips for that transition before daycare begins?
When you can – some of it’s dependent on the age. So if they’re under 20 weeks, it’s a little harder to have really solid prep because you don’t have a set schedule. They have not developed a circadian rhythm that allows them to have a really set schedule, for most babies. And then their sleep cycles are still developing. So I would say under 18 to 20 weeks, it’s a little bit more of a wild card when they transition, so give yourself a lot of grace, but continue to prioritize good sleep at home. And then really prioritize – if you’re listening to this and you’re like, I’ve already passed that point, over five months – take your weekends to focus on a schedule. What is the best time for nap one to start, for nap two to start, for nap three to start? Or if they’re on two naps, nap one and nap two. And prioritize those good naps at home. And then give that guidance to the care providers. The vast majority of parents are not giving that guidance. I also work with a lot of daycares, and so I hear from them, that would be helpful. So that’s the biggest tip. And then if you have a baby who’s on that schedule and getting ready to go, just focus on keeping them well rested. Don’t practice loud sleep prior to them going to daycare. And then I usually say two weeks, even for kids who will ultimately sleep well at daycare – the first two weeks are bumpy. The baby is getting to know their care providers and vise versa, and they’re adjusting to having all their little friends around while they’re learning to nap there. Even in the best case scenarios, the first two weeks can be bumpy. Give yourself a lot of grace. Give your baby a lot of grace. And then hopefully as you head into week three, the care providers feel a little more confident with how they can support your baby to take better naps, and then things should start to smooth out.
The transition to grandparents as caregivers – any tips for that, Allison?
I like to say that grandparents are a little bit of the biggest wild card, and I’m always so envious of families who are getting childcare from grandparents. I think it’s an amazing gift, and it’s been increasing in the United States in recent years. I find that grandparents tend to fall into two camps, and of course, this is kind of going on the extremes. There’s everything in between. But you have some grandparents who say, we just need to sleep train this baby, and they’re ready to take charge. They aren’t as emotionally entangled as maybe we are as parents. They are gung-ho on schedules and helping your baby become an independent sleeper.
And then we have the other grandparents who will say, I’m never going to let this baby cry. I just want to hold them for all the naps. I’m the grandparent. I can do whatever I want. My job is to dote on this baby. And that group is a little harder to wrangle.
As it relates to sleep specifically – obviously, there’s a lot of aspects of childcare with grandparents and anyone else. I usually say if you cannot get your parents to do what you’re doing around sleep – let’s say have your baby fall asleep independently – the biggest thing I’d come back to is the schedule. At least have them have your baby nap at the right times, and if it is starting to mess with your sleep – so as far as the weekend, and you can tell that your baby is getting confused by the mixed messages – this happens most often when the grandparents are caring for the baby in the family’s home, versus the grandparents’ home. Sometimes we can come back to the impact on the whole family and that it’s not just their relationship with the baby. What the grandparents are doing as it relates to sleep is making it so no one is getting good sleep at night or on the weekends, that it’s impacting everyone, the parents and sometimes the parents’ mental health.
I do find sometimes grandparents will have compassion for their own child, if their child is struggling with the current setup. So not making it about the grandparents and their relationship with their grandchild, but more about the impact it’s having on their own child, if that makes sense.
And I’ve found with our postpartum doula clients, a lot of grandparents, at least in the area of Michigan I live in, are caregiving in their own home. So it was a transition from maternity leave, going back to work, to bringing baby to a completely different space.
And have you found that goes smoothly, or do you think it’s more challenging for them?
More challenging than grandparents who are able to caregive in the home. Because the nursery is all set up, so you need to set up their living space for optimal sleep. My clients still keep us on for overnights so they can get good sleep at night because there are some challenges with a different phase during the day.
Do you also find that the grandparents can be the biggest wildcard, one way or the other?
Yes.
And it’s so great that they’re willing and able to provide care. I think there’s something so wonderful about it. But also, it’s tough to tell your parents what to do.
And then with larger families, grandparents may be involved in caregiving for other children, and they could have completely different parenting styles and goals. So they think that they’re pros, but it’s much different in the household of their children.
So true! I don’t think I’ve really encountered too much of that with my clients, but I can totally see that because my brother and I have very different parenting styles, so if our parents were watching our kids, I could see that we would be giving very different instructions.
I found that with my own parents and siblings. It is interesting!
I also think with the grandparents – and this is just my personal thought, that if we decide to parent differently than we were parented, then I think some grandparents take it as a judgment on their parenting style. And I am a firm believer that no parent wants to be judged for their parenting style. We all are doing our very best, and we think we’re doing the best thing for our kids. So I think when your own child tries to take a different approach, it can sting. Are they judging you as the grandparent, that you didn’t parent them correctly? So I do try to encourage clients of mine that are struggling with their parents, that it’s possible they feel judged, and none of us want to be judged for our parenting and someone telling us maybe we got it wrong. So I do try to give grandparents a lot of grace in that regard when their child is trying to do something different.
Exactly. And it could be about feeding or parenting choices, sleep, so many different things. Even how you birth your baby!
100%, yes!
We are running out of time, but I could talk to you forever, Allison! I would love for you to share all of the different ways that our listeners can connect with you.
Absolutely. So as you mentioned, I have a podcast called How Long Till Bedtime? And then you can see all of the things that we’re getting into at Sleep and Wellness Coach and how we work with families at our website.
Excellent. And you’re also on social media?
I am. Instagram is the primary place where I share some behind the scenes, and my handle is @sleepandwellnesscoach. And then we’re also on YouTube and TikTok and Facebook and all the other places. But Instagram is where we do the most.
Excellent. Any final words for our listeners, Allison?
I always like to tell parents who are transitioning their children into daycare that it’s okay to feel stressed about that. It’s okay. It’s normal. Give it a little bit of time, and just know that you are doing a great job.
Love it! Thank you so much!
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