27 month old naptime wiggleworm

I am the preschool teacher on these forums that thinks she knows it all-
:-)
I have a little one at preschool who is learning to sit still at snack, mealtime, chapel time, the rest of the time we sorta let him "RUN"- yes he will find something that keeps his attention and he will calm- he is very very active but I do not think he is hyperactive- his mom thinks he is- and is probably a bit overly concerned-

From week one- he cried a bit when leaving momma, got better and better- now there are no tears except when she picks him up -almost a dutiful, obligatory cry when he runs to her at pick up time, which by the way is 1230 for him-
HE SCREAMS at naptime so badly he makes all the other children wake and several of them begin to cry- even into the next room- it upsets the whole place- we decided to ask mom to pick him up at 12:30.

Now we see he is teachable and he knows us all a bit better. we want her to start trying to leave him for naptime again and she wants him to- but she wants us to lightly spank him to get him to stay still- that is the method she says works at home- and I have seen her use it - it is a light pat on the diaper and he usually giggles- anyways I just flat out told her we cannot use that discipline technique at school. we could try the patting on the back which is how we usually get the other darlings down for nap but he won't lay still enough "to PAT"- and I hate hate hate restraining a child.
I have tried getting him still and on his mat right before she comes as a soothing quiet story time right before nap to see if I could ease him into the idea of being still- I have to hold him and he fidgets and squirms to get out of my lap the entire time. I give him his sippy cup to soothe him on my lapsince at home mom says he still gets milk bottle for nap- and yes we tried milk bottle before he starting leaving before naptime and it DID NOT WORK for us. I have tried letting him lay still on his own while I am reading the book and all the others are lying nice and still and before we can get to him - he is up stepping on the other kiddo's heads. I can't have that either.

For children that do not sleep after about 45 minutes of trying to lie still if they are still fidgety, usually from a stuffy congested nose or some other odd reason for occasionally being restless, we do allow them to go out of the room and quietly look at a book and give them no attention, just sit quietly with them.

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It is not this woman's fault- she is a stay at home mom and brings the boy only twice a week- he is eldest- there is a 9 month old baby that the whole family adores. Mom says the boy DOES mind the dad- and dad is pretty soft spoken himself. Mom thinks I am even too soft spoken, believe it or not. She is bilingual and has spoken more and more English to him since he's started preschool but we have ruled out language barrier because MANY times the boy responds to commands from us when there is no prompting whatsoever- the first day our music teacher brought in some new things to use- some olittle animlas carpet mats- at the end without pointing or any prompts she said "Can everyone hand me their animal mats?" This boy was the first to stand up and give her his mat.
I guess I just want a plan of a few more things to try for him when we try again- November we want to let him try to stay all day. Mom saw thru the door window last week how I was wrestling with him at naptime and how all the other kiddos sat still and she could not BELIEVE the others lay there so calmly-

any other ideas for teaching self soothing to a wiggle worm-??? that is my goal here.

Thanks to anyone who read all the way thru this.

[babygirl6152]

meant to say how I was wrestling with him at story time- not nap time- it is prior to NAP TIME