Our son has been sleeping like a champ for a year and a half. We've had some small issues along the way, but it's mostly been good. The problem right now isn't that he's waking up in the middle of HIS night, but 5:30 is too early for me. I'm averaging 6 hours of sleep these days. What I didn't realize how important having a sizable nap on a rigid schedule is to how long he'll sleep in the morning. I have to say that i have no idea how it works, but it does. I'm about to start our transition to a fixed nap schedule. We'll see how that works out for both of us.

So the thing I'm wondering is if I'd be aware of this or even have influence on nap times if he was in day care.

My experience with day care is that kids take naps at roughly the same time and the schedule is set by the care givers. Some sleep longer than others mostly because of their ability to sleep through noise and commotion etc. They will certainly give you a log of when naps occurred but you are most likely at the mercy of the collective schedule. Kind of like the Soviet Union but for kids!

If I'd have known that Soviet Communism instituted universal naptimes, I'd have been a strong supporter long ago!

TheBoy takes a 2 hour nap after lunch everyday at DayCare (the whole class does). I don't think they've ever had a problem with him, and his note always says he slept great.

So I am a big supporter of the regimented nap schedule. It gets a lil' outta whack on the weekends, he usually takes a morning nap too (which we really enjoy, 'cause we usually join him). But it's fairly regular. 1 or 2 naps a day, an hour or 2 each. Any longer and bedtime seems to get later and later... which make for rougher/later mornings.

But when we get home, he will sometimes be really tired and ready for another nap(I think it depends on how/where they play in the afternoon). If he goes out quick, we'll let him sleep an hour or so, but if he fidgets for that time, we keep him awake long enough to have dinner, then let him crash out, and he generally sleeps through the night then. Those early night crashes are great because I am able to get chores done during the week, but I sometimes feel I am not spending enough time with him those nights. The after daycare nap is deadly to my productivity, because I tend to join him in an after work nap... which destroys my gumption for the evening. We play more, but then I worry about chores. 'Tis a vicious neurotic cycle. But I'm used to it.