Afternoon preschool/Nap or quiet time after?

[madskye]

Does anyone have a good routine for the afternoons after preschool? DD is going 12:30-3, it's 3:30 by the time we get home. She is both wound up and tired when we get home, and then either falls asleep for the night at 6, or stays up and becomes miserable.

I tried to get her to take the nap yesterday and it was a big battle. I don't really care if she sleeps or not, but I do think she needs some "down time" to relax. Yesterday, I tried reading stories and laying down with her but that didn't work.

Any routines/ideas welcome.

[sweetlovinmama]

I have dealt with that before. It's a really awkward time for a nap anyway, and would completely screw up our bedtime schedule. If she didn't take a nap and was completely exhausted from her day even giving her some quiet time didn't completely take away the possibility of a dinner time meltdown.
The main thing that I've tried to do is make sure that once we get home we get a healthy snack and move into a dimly lit room for a quiet time. I had to kind of talk DD into it, so I would start mentioning it on the way home and list some of the activities that she will be allowed to do.
She had a big problem with going into her bedroom for it at first, so I let her choose which room she wanted to be in, either my bedroom, hers or her sisters. That gave her a little control over the situation which is huge for her when she's run down. Then I would let her listen to an audio book, give her a stack of books to flip through while soft music is playing, help with puzzles or watch a short video.
A few light snacks really helped keep her in an ok mood, and once she got used to having down time right then she became more open to laying in her bed while she had stories read to her.