Hi, all! I used to be more involved at Hellobee and recently took a break as part of my plan get more done at work ☺

I’m posting again, though, in hopes of getting some advice.

Background: My son started at a new preschool this fall, 9AM-3PM. It’s a Montessori school, with three teachers and 18 3-5 year-olds. My son is the youngest child in the class, turning 3 in November. He is also in the midst of napping troubles, often not falling asleep at home or falling asleep after a lot of struggle. When he is not well-rested, he has much more impulsive behavior and he can be very challenging at home.

He has had a couple of incidents at school where he did not nap and has had some difficult behavior at school. He was also mildly sick both days. (Today, he would not rest, standing up and trying to run around the nap area. He also refused to use the bathroom when asked, hit the teacher when she tried to settle him, and used an “angry face” at some point to indicate his displeasure with the situation.) The school director seems to be pushing for him to go half-days, something that I can manage work-wise in the short-term, but not in the long-term.

Pending being able to get out of our current contract, we could send him back to his old school. We were happy with the old school; it was just much more expensive and less convenient. They never reported behavior problems for him there, either because he didn’t have them or they handled them differently. But he really likes his current school, so we don’t want to rashly move him.

We’re trying to sort out what to expect and what to do: how much of what’s going on is atypical behavior for a toddler, how much might be age-related (so that he might do better in a month or so), related to a nap transition (and, again, maybe once he gets through his current nap troubles, things might be better for him), something preschools should be able to handle, or the school not being a good fit for him.

If anyone has any thoughts, I would really appreciate hearing them!