Weaning Baby Off the Swing
For most babies, the swing is a handy tool to help ease the occasional disruption of teething, growth spurts, and days when naps just aren’t happening. For about 15% of babies, according to Dr. Karp, the baby swing will be a crucial newborn survival tool.
You will know you are the parent of one of these babies because the thought of your baby outgrowing the swing will cause you to break out in flop sweat.
Baby Outgrowing the Swing?
This comes up a lot, so lets pause briefly to consider the reality that your child will NOT outgrow the swing.
The average US baby weighs 7.5 lbs at birth and will hit 21+ lbs by their 1st birthday. Modern Fisher Price swings have a weight limit of up to 25 lbs and Graco swings can handle babies up to 30 lbs. This means that your baby will have outgrown their need to swing far before they need to physically vacate the swing. So you can stop Googling toddler swings because I promise, you won’t need one. Honest.
When Should Baby be Out of the Swing?
Most babies will only need the swing for a short time and will be happily sleeping without motion by the time they are 3-4 months old. Some babies need extra soothing and might be in the swing for as long as 6 months. A very small group of babies (those who have reflux or who are just extra sensitive) may need to stay in the swing until they are 8-10 months old.
There is no obvious litmus test to know that your baby is ready to move into their crib. You simply try to dial down the speed now and then and see where that gets you. If your baby takes a 2 hour nap when the swing is on speed #4 and a 20 minute nap when the swing is on speed #2, then you know it’s not time yet. One day soon you’ll put your baby in a non-moving swing, the door will ring, and while you’re signing for a FedEx package, your baby will fall asleep sans-swinging. And voila!
But just in case FedEx doesn’t come to your house at naptime, you can also wean your little motion-junkie out of the swing the old fashioned way.
The 8 Step Process to Successfully Weaning Your Baby Out of the Swing
Put your baby into the swing AWAKE.
The swing is a powerful tool to help your baby learn to fall asleep without you (bouncing, rocking, feeding, etc.) them to sleep. However if you’re still (bouncing, rocking, feeding, etc.) your baby to sleep and THEN putting them into the swing, you’re not taking advantage of this capability. Yes you’ll be able to slip your already sleeping baby into the crib and feel like a huge success. But that leaves you navigating the treacherous waters of “putting baby down awake” on your own. While this can be done, it’s generally a lot easier with the swing. So take this opportunity to work on “put baby down awake” IN the swing, BEFORE you start weaning OFF the swing.
Give baby lots of great sleep cues.
Ideally your baby is sleeping in the swing with a great wind-down routine, tight swaddle, loud white noise, and possibly a pacifier. Thus when you remove the swing from the equation, you still have 3 other wonderfully soothing sleep cues to work with. If you’re just plunking your sleepy baby in a swing without additional sleep cues, removing the swing leaves you…nothing! Even if your baby is sleeping just fine in the swing without any additional sleep-aids, the swaddle and white noise will be your friends when it’s time to transition to the crib.
Start weaning with bedtime.
Almost all babies transition to the crib more easily at bedtime than they do for naps. Once you’ve mastered crib sleeping at bedtime, move on to the first nap of the day.
Move the swing NEXT to the crib.
For most of you, the swing has been next to your bed. Now it’s time to move it so that it’s next to baby’s bed.
Progressively decrease the speed of the swing.
Continue to put baby in the swing awake. Start decreasing the speed. Note: Despite my love of Fisher Price Baby Swings the only issue is that the difference between the highest and lowest speed is, well, negligible. The bottom line is that you want your baby swinging on the lowest speed possible, with a swaddle and white noise, NEXT to their crib.
Put your awake baby in a non-moving swing.
If it helps, you can manually swing the swing a little bit to help them fall asleep. But you want to do this as little as possible (or minimally decrease the amount of swinging each day). The goal is for your baby to sleep in a motionless swing. Once your baby is falling asleep in a motionless swing…
Put baby in the crib.
I can’t promise you a tear-free transition. Sometimes there is some mild complaints about the change of scenery. But generally it IS mild (<20 minutes on night #1).
Repeat the process for naps.
Note: sometimes swing-loving babies are sleeping happily in their crib LONG before they make the transition to naptime. It’s not at all uncommon to have a 4 month old night-sleeping in the crib but napping in the swing until they are 6 months old. So if the nap transition isn’t happening for you today, take a break. Try again in a week or two. There’s no rush.
Anybody have any experiences they would like to share? Stories from the trenches?
{Photo Credits: Mike Liu and Mpisti}
I'm Alexis and figuring out how to get your kids to sleep better is my secret superpower (I was hoping for the ability to shoot laser beams out of my eyes but c'est la vie). I swoon for pop culture references. I'm not nearly as funny as I think I am. And I believe you can never have too much wine, cheese, or Game of Thrones. 
Agnes on 
Kate on 
Shelley on
I’m glad to know my child won’t be messed up permanently for using his swing.
But he is over 8 months old and takes EVERY nap in his swing. I am ashamed to admit it has been far too easy to nurse him to drowsiness, pop him in the swing (awake) and he falls asleep within 5 minutes every time.
Today he has been protesting even being put in the swing, which should be a great sign if I want to wean him of it. The problem is during the day he seems to go from rested and happy to overtired and hyper without showing any sleep signals. I have him on a schedule so I know his naps are at approximately 9 and 2, but I can’t seem to get him to settle–at ALL–without the swing! If we rock in a chair he claws, bites, and arches. If we walk around the house he’s okay at first and then starts acting like a rabid raccoon as well.
He does settle well at night in the dark. But we have a very open floor plan with a skylight, so there’s no way to get our house dark unless it’s dark outside.
HELP!
Hi! Thank you for all the wonderful info. My first child had a nurse to sleep association that backfired on me around 4.5 months. I read the book Bed Timing, realized I needed to just survive and wait till the clingy phase passed. We transitioned to crib with PUPDs at 6m relatively easy. Timing really is everything.
Anyway I have a 13 week old now and I’ve been super paranoid about NOT nursing to sleep
and I hate the paci for the same reason. Actually I’ve been worried about any sleep associations. But she’s is so little and is a motion baby for sure. She got slightly addicted to paci around the drama of wonder week 12. So over the past 2 weeks I’ve been very good at writing down all sleep times and I’ve gotten her waketimes perfected although sometimes I’m still a few minutes off with bedtime (toddler running free and husband works nightshirt =hard!) For several weeks I’ve been doing all naps and nights in swing. Nap routine is diaper, white noise, lay in crib while swaddling watching crib aquarium, sway vertical 1 min, lay in swing awake about 5-7 min before asleep time. Uses paci some to unwind but I’ve been decreasing use and at least for the first few naps I get it out when eyes get really heavy. Sometimes she spits it out before she is asleep YAY. Swing is staying on full nap right now because she is taking mostly 5 a day, 45 min naps. Wakes happy, I think it’s age related and I expect them to lengthen soon. She has had longer naps before back when her sleep cycles were 30 min and I would turn swing off for some of those and she would stay asleep an extra hour or two so I know she can do it. Plan is to completely lose paci, decrease speed, unswaddle, move to crib at 6m or Kanoe baby hammock if younger and needed
At night, bath, PJ, white noise, Swaddle in crib, nurse…..here’s my problem. So she tries to fall asleep nursing so I pop her off after couple min of comfort nursing, burp her, put in swing, fuss for 5-10 min thats improves w jiggling (stopped night paci a few nights ago cause she will keep waking up looking for it at night) and she’s asleep. I see her on video monitor stir after sleep cycle and she goes on back to sleep as long as swing is still on. BT around 630-715 based off Waketime since last nap. But if I turn swing off before 9-10 she wakes up which I think means I’m getting in swing a few min too late causing a little OT. She sleeps with swing off till 1st NF, if I put straight down I sometimes turn it on for 20 min and then off, and after 2nd NF about half time leave swing on till AM wakeup. So for BT when would you suggest nursing to disconnect it further from nursing to sleep? I like it cause its unwinding but I don’t like it so close that she is still rooting around. After ST my first I would nurse till comfort sucking, stand up and sway vertical, lay in crib drowsy. But he sucked his thumb at that point. So I’m confused about when to nurse… After bath, before Swaddle? Worried i’ll get her riled back up after she’s calm and drowsy. Or maybe just nurse a few minutes earlier to not risk getting too sleepy. I will mention she hates hp being swaddled while nursing but she also hates me swaddling her when she wants the boob back lol.
This swing thing is really new for me. We have the fisher price little lamb and I HATE that speed 1 is still fast and I can’t wean speed like I want to. Shes on a 3 now down from 6 a week ago. Although pp mentioned hanging blanket. Great idea. Does this work for people?
I am worried because at 13 weeks swaddled, as soon as she wakes and is ready to get up, she lifts her head and tries to lean forward. Not a big deal during the day cause I watch video monitor close but worries me at night even with her next to my bed. I buckle her in the 3 point harness but I’m paranoid she will fall out especially as time goes on. So 4 nights ago I moved her to baby hammock. Went ok but involved a lot of PUPD, fussing, missing sleep at BT, couldn’t get down easily at bedtime without paci so that really was just going backwards to use paci. So back to swing tonight.
The leaning is my biggest concern with sleeping in swing at night
I have been researching the Graco swings. Noticed they have the slower speed and the five point harness. Willing to risk the motor blowout if she would be safer in this although I hate to buy more baby gear! I prefer a deeper seat with a good recline to keep neck alignment good (mamaroo threw her neck out and had a lot of trips to chiropractor to fix it) The Graco Lovin Hug looks like a good option. I also saw the Bright Starts Ingenuity Smart and Quite swing. Just wondering which you would suggest? She is 13.5 lb at 3m and I don’t plan on using past 6m and her swing speed is a 3 on the fisher price lamb. Easygoing baby overall. I even saw her put herself to sleep in the still swing around 8-11 weeks every night after her first sleep cycle, but wonder week 12 and the new awareness has got us swinging to sleep again
Sorry so long! Thanks
I have a 5 month old who’s always mapped in his swing, but has been sleeping in his crib since 2 weeks for bedtime.
He’s slept through the night @ 3 months so were fine there.
Now I want to transition from swing to crib for naps (and for my sitters) but he’s hating it.
We have no sleep cues for nap time (never have, hasn’t really been an issue) and always put him down awake since day 1.
I can’t imagine swaddling him, we stopped that @ 3 months and he didn’t enjoy being swaddle then either.
Any suggestions on how to make the transition smoother, he is not liking the crib @ all.
Hi Katie,
I am going through the same exact situation! He would nap 3 times a day, 3 hour total without the swing on. Now that we have moved him to the crib for his naps he naps for 1.5 hour total and is more cranky. Night time he’s fine in the crib.
I would love suggestions ..
i am doing one nap at a time…right now just the am nap. that way she can make up for a crappy nap with the others in the swing.
tried to do the afternoon nap and it was only 1/2 hr.
Hi, my six month old takes all her naps in her swing but has been known to sleep in other places. I weaned her from swaddling at five months and she has been fine. At night, she sleeps I her crib from around 9:30 or 10 until about 8 the next morning! If she wakes, she usually puts herself back to sleep. However, all of this wonderful sleep only happens if I let her rock in the swing for round half an hour before moving her to her crib. I don’t know the best plan for getting rid of the swing part and putting her right in er crib to sleep. I have only tried one time to just lay her down, but she immediately cried. A few times, she has fallen asleep while eating and I have put her down fine too. Lots of my friends tell me I ave nothing to worry about and to just appreciate how we’ll she sleeps in the crib. But I see an issue on the horizon! Help!
Hi Alexis or anyone else
We were using the swing for all sleeping and have been moving into the crib gradually starting with night time (not too bad) then morning nap. Her am nap used to be super long in the swing (had to wake her after 2 hrs) but is still pretty good in the crib. usually at least 1 hr but sometimes a little longer. Tried to do the afternoon nap a few days ago and she only napped for 1/2 hr and she def did not seem very well rested! I tried leaving her for a little, soothing (butt pat) and finally transferring into crib but no dice! got her out at norm time and then put her down a little earlier for nap 3 which is usually 45 min but she slept for almost 2 hrs that day…i let her go until 5 so i could still put her down by 7 for bedtime.
so my question is is this going to get better with time? i am wondering if that nap will lengthen on its own and i jsut have to suck it up for a little while OR is she just not ready to do 2 naps in the crib yet?? she seemed to be fidgety in the swing for a little while and that’s why i thought it might be time to try the nap in the crib.
any advice would be much appreciated:)
forgot to mention…she is 6months and the swing in not moving
Hi ladies / Alexis
My 14 week old has been swinging for all naps and sleeping well at nightin his cot. I tried putting him in his cot for naps this week – he goes to sleep ok, but wakes after 30-45 min and.won’t go back to sleep. I tried getting him back to sleep up there for 4 naps yesterday and 4 naps the day before – all to no avail! Also he has taken to waking at 2am again – hasn’t done this for weeks. Is this due to poor day sleep? I think there is a growth spurt in there somewhere as well. He’s back in the swing today- I am an emotional wreck after the last two days!
Just posting to say I feel everyone’s pain! Maybe my LO is just too young to give up the swing yet? Also where do people have their swings? Mine is in the living room cos I want to keep an eye on him – swaddled so not strapped in. Means I am constantly with him all day though – any suggestions? Thanks!
We have been using the fisher price swing with our now 11 week old son for about a week and a half now, and are loving it! It is next to our bed currently and we are working on lowering speed slowly. We started on level 5 and just went to level 4 yesterday (he slept a bit less but not a huge difference). We use it every night and for his long nap during the day, and both times we put him in awake and he can fall asleep on his own. Since starting the swing we are usually down to only 1 night feeding. So..here’s the question.. He typically wakes for the day around 730 or 8 am and then takes a short nap in his bouncy seat or while being held at around 930 or 10. This nap rarely lasts longer than half hour. He takes his long nap somewhere between 130 and 230 and sleeps for 2 1/2 to 3 hours. Occasionally he takes another quick nap in the evening. Should we be putting him in the swing for these quick naps as well to be consistent? We are hoping to wean odd the swing and transition to crib by around 4 months, but we will see how it goes of course! Thank you SO much for this site!
*wean off (not odd)
Lucy…we do an arm swaddle so he can be strapped in the swing. The swing is upstairs in our bedroom, and I use the monitor wherever I am and check on him periodically.
My (almost) 5 month old has been sleeping in the swing since 1 month old, and I have been trying for a while to wean her off of it. She goes to sleep fine without it moving at the beginning of the night (bedtime about 6:30 pm and goes in swing drowsy but awake, with white noise, and a paci), and sleeps until sometime between 1-4 am usually. When she woke up, I would go in and give her her paci (or sometimes feed her a bottle – she used to always need a feeding at this time, but i always tried the paci first and it was working more and more often) and turn on the swing and she would go back to sleep until 5:30-6 am. Well…..yesterday the swing motor broke!! So, I decided to just go for it and commit to sleeping with no motion. Last night, the hours from 2-6 am were pretty rough for me. About every 45-60 min, I had to go back in and give her the paci again and manually swing the swing for a few minutes to get her to sleep again. After that, she would be good for an hour or so, but then wake crying again. I don’t want to get another swing, but I am just not sure if this will get better or not. I think I will commit to a week of trying it and hope that she gets more used to sleeping without motion, since she can do it for her first stretch of 6-8 hrs of sleep. Anyone have experience with something similar or have any advice or suggestions? I initially thought that once she could GO to sleep without motion we were in the clear, but that is not proving to be the case.
I am in a similar boat! Hopefully someone has some suggestions!
Reading your post is identical to my son. Identical. Except hes 12 weeks old. I registered my fisher price swing when I got it. So when the motor broke, I called them and got a replacement motor sent to me because it was under warranty. The motor was on “back order”, I’m sure it’s a common problem. Took about 2 weeks. While broken my son was sleeping in it not moving at night from like 10pm-7am (with either a feedin or pacifier at 4am), but wouldn’t nap during the day with it broken. The motor arrived today! I put my son in it for a nap at 5pm…. And he never woke up! Haha. I kept checking on him. I just woke up at 12:30am shocked…. I had to wake him up and feed him. I’m sure he would have slept 12 hours. I read to take advantage of sleep aids now. There’s no reason to wean until we have to. Do it when you have to. They’ll eventually grow out of it. Also I read that babies don’t really grow out of the swing physically in most cases, so use the harness obviously. But in my opinion, my son needs good deep long periods of sleep for essential growth. If this is how he needs it, fine. His body is doing so much work creating hormones needed for growth only during sleep. We’ll cross the crib-bridge when we get there.
Meridith and Mik,
Just wanted to update you on our situation. We had a couple of rough nights but it did get better and I never got a new motor. I still usually have to get up typically one or two times a night and give her the paci, but it is a lot less than it was the first few nights. She has also been taking naps there pretty well. Most of her naps are only about 45 min, but that was all we got with a moving swing, so it’s no different. Now I just need to get up the courage to move her to the crib! I think she is probably ready since she can sleep all night in the non-moving swing now, but I am scared since she is sleeping so well right now!
Hi Betsy,
Just thought I’d share a little to maybe give you some confidence to try the crib! We also use the swing for all sleep with our 4.5mo old. He used to take 1.5-3hr naps regularly but woke to eat several times to eat at night. After the 4mo regression he dropped all but 1 night feed (so awesome!!) But his naps dropped to 45-50 mins. So I decided to just try him in the crib at nap times….and it was no big deal. I used to put him in the swing practically wide awake so for the crib I let him get extra drowsy, almost all the way asleep. Then laid him down (he would wake up) then hopefully at that point he was so super tired he’d drift off. I do still use the swing at night (too tired in the middle of the night to even mess with crib now) and sometimes for naps if he really, really needs to sleep. Anyway, give it a try! You never know
I have a 14 month old who has never ever fallen asleep anywhere BUT in her carseat, snuggabunny rock n sleep (fisher price), or the snuggabunny swing (also fisher price). She slept in the rock n sleep next to our bed until she was about 7 months, then she could climb out of it, so we transitioned her (almost effortlessly!) to the swing in her own room. She sleeps 12 hours every night waking up to nurse 1-2 per night, and she also takes 2 1-2 hour naps each day. We swaddled her until she physically outgrew the swaddle blankets. She only weighs 18 lbs (she eats ALL the time, though!), so she can physically fit in the swing until she’s 25 pounds…but my pediatrician (and friends and family) are all urging me to get her sleeping in her crib. We have attempted this on several occasions (both the pack and play in our room and then her crib in her own room), and every time we have gone 5+ nights with her not sleeping at ALL. She would literally fall asleep standing or sitting up, fall over, immediately wake up, then stand up and start yelling all over again. Finally my husband and I caved and put her back in the swing, where she immediately fell asleep. I’m thinking it has to do with the smaller space and/or her being strapped in and that feeling of security (this was a baby that LOVED her swaddle!). She currently sleeps in a non-moving swing with a pacifier and white noise…as soon as she is strapped I to the swing she smiles and coos and falls asleep within a few mins with no issues whatsoever. We have tried the crib a few times since just to see if she was ready and it always leads to a huge freak out even if everything else remains the same (routine,white noise,pacifier, etc) and she will not even lay down in the crib and we already know she can literally last days. Any suggestions on how to transition her to her crib when it’s not the motion part of the swing she loves but the feeling of confined space and being strapped down? Please please help…and for the people that are just going to say “let her cry it out” WE HAVE tried this, and it did not work! Not to mention that if someone took your pillow and blankets and told you to sleep in some random spot that you weren’t comfortable in YOU probably wouldn’t be able to sleep either!
My 4.5 month old is exactly the same! She’s even small for her age but eats all the time! I’ve tried and tried to get her to sleep in her crib and she won’t have any part of it. I read if some babies sleeping in their swing up to 10 months! We just make sure to strap her in every time. I’ve given up on the crib for now. But I’ve been trying to find something similar to the swing seat to put in the crib, but so far no luck.
We currently use the swing and swaddle at night with our 5 month old. We also give her the passie when we put her down at bedtime. She also wakes up once during the middle of the night to be fed.
My question is which should we wean her off of first? Swing, swaddle, or night feeding?
Also, even though we only give her the passie when we put her down the first time, and we don’t have to go back in an put it back in throughout the night, will this come back to haunt us? Should we be weaning her off the passie too?
I worry about the paci too as we are in almost the identical situation as you (although she recently gave up the night feeding on her own – yay!) I am not going to worry about the paci unless it becomes a problem. Many babies do fine and never need you to put it back in all night, so I would just wait and see what happens. If she starts being up demanding that you put it back in her mouth, you can get rid of it then. Until then, I wouldn’t worry about it.
I don’t know whether it is better to wean off the swing or the swaddle first. We are dealing with this right now also. I have tried swaddling with one arm out in the swing several times and it was a total disaster, so I don’t think we are ready to wean off the swaddle at all (at 5 months!). I haven’t tried the crib in a while, but she is sleeping all night in a non-moving swing now, so I am going to soon (when I feel brave and well rested
Same position as everyone else–we were beginning to think about weaning our little guy off the swing (he’s five months old, 22lbs, and his feet dangle off the end), when the motor on the snugabunny died. Moving to a still swing was easy, but moving out of the swing into his crib is turning into a disaster. He just doesn’t nap at all!
So, SOME babies do outgrow the swing way before they’re ready, I guess. Sigh.
I am in the same situation, although my girl is only 16 lbs. She sleeps great in a non-moving swing (with broken motor…), but not good anywhere else. I actually haven’t tried night sleeping in the crib, but naps have not gone well, so I have been scared to attempt a whole night
For those attempting a swing to crib transfer, I wanted to share our success story. As I posted here, our swing broke a month ago so I was forced to go to a non-moving swing at 4.5 months. She still slept well (after a few semi-bad nights, anyway), so I started trying to put her in the crib. Several times, I tried and she just ended up crying. I wasn’t able to let her CIO when I knew she would sleep great in the non-moving swing, so I gave in and moved her. Then, 3 days ago, I put her in the crib and she fell asleep with NO crying. She slept all night and again the next night. Now, she is asleep again in the crib for the 3rd night. She is now 5.5 months old. When she was ready, it happened without CIO or even any crying at all. If the transition is going poorly for you, just try again in a few days and things may change. We’re still having issues with naps, but I am following the same technique. I try the crib occasionally, but move to the swing if crying starts. I hope eventually she will nap in the crib as well.
Our four month old is sleeping in still swing with one arm swaddled successfully at night and at most naps. He wakes for one night feeding and after that he sleeps with both arms unswaddled. We would like to move him to his crib but he has been rolling over from back to front easily for a few weeks now. We don’t want to put him in crib swaddled since he rolls so often… Should we just keep him in the swing until he can sleep totally unswaddled? Thanks for any advice!
Thanks to your site our night times are finally peaceful! At 6 months we finally resorted to CIO and now our 8 month old happily falls asleep on her own in her crib at night and will usually sleep 8 to 10 hours without waking (or with minimal waking that she soothes herself back to sleep after). My only problem is swing weaning for naps and for the occasional 4am wake up. We just can NOT seem to get beyond swing sleep for these times and it’s kind of got us held hostage. We would love to visit family abroad but can’t exactly pack up the swing for travel. We have followed the steps outlined here and 80% of the time she will eventually settle in the non-moving swing but there are still times where she will require movement and GOD FORBID we put her in her crib for a nap! You would think we were torturing her. Do you have any suggestions or do we just have one of those rare kiddos that will need the swing for longer than most?
So I have a just turned eight month old who we are trying to transition from swing to crib. He has had bad reflux but it seems to be controlled so we are thinking we need to get him in the crib. He sleeps in the swing for both naps and night-time. He sleeps two two hour naps and goes to bed at 6:30pm sleeps until about 2 am wakes up we change him, feed him a bottle and he goes right back to sleep. We don’t even turn on the swing so I no longer think it is the motion he needs but maybe the feeling of being cuddled? We do feed him a bottle right before bed but our thought was that if it was a sleep association wouldn’t he wake up after every sleep cycle needing it to go back to sleep? We have a white noise machine that he has been used to since birth. And he absolutely refuses any pacifier. So this past weekend we thought we would try to transfer him to the crib. After it taking 3 hours to get him asleep he would wake every 30 minutes, it would take 30 minutes to get him back asleep and then that routine lasted all night until 4am when my husband and I were exhausted and stuck him in the swing and within minutes he was asleep. Any suggestions? How did your 13 month old transfer from being cuddled to the big open crib. We are at a loss and since he is a big boy (pretty much 25 lbs. which is the limit of the swing) we feel like we have to do it soon. But this past weekend was just stressful for all involved (including my two year old who he kept up all night also). Any help would be much appreciated!
I have a similar situation to “April” above, am also wondering about just the feeling of being “cuddled”.
This website has been so helpful for us, thank you! We have a 4.5 month old who is now sleeping in a motionless swing in his room with white noise. (No swaddle, no paci) He goes down at 7, up by 6 or 7, and wakes once or twice for feedings. Sounds like we are ready for the crib, right?? Wrong! We have tried the crib every 2 weeks since he turned 3 months old…He cries and whimpers for an hour initially and then cries and whimpers after night wakings which occur every 2 hours through the night. He has a bit of a spit-up/reflux issue and so you can imagine, this website/post has really put my mind at ease.
One question (from my husband): Is sleeping in the swing at his age/size (4.5 months/13 lbs) bad for his back/spine development? He seems so curled up in there, it can’t be good for his posture, right???
Any reassurance would be great!
Hi Breezy,
Just thought I’d tell you a little about our transition to crib since it sounds similar to your situation. Our LO slept in the swing from 2-5months. He also had reflux issues and was either in the swing or rock’n'play for all sleep, swaddled, with paci and white noise. The transition to motionless swing was very easy and baby didn’t seem to notice. At 5 mos the motor died anyway and we were going on vacation so we used the rock’n'play for a couple weeks. It seemed like LO was trying to sit up/move more at night and the incline was bothering him instead of the cuddly feeling he used to crave. At 5.5mos we were back from vacation and we knew we’d have a few rough nights of sleep anyway so we moved to the crib. Yes, there were extra wakeups and I nursed him back to sleep 3-4 times/night for several days. From there we worked out of the swaddle and now at 6.5mos he’s swaddle free and in the crib full time with 1 night feed.
Also, I started the crib transition during naps (4.5mos) and prepared myself to go in and console as many times as were needed until he got used to it. Some naps were super easy and others took extra soothing but this lasted maybe a week. Around 3mos I was anxious to get him in the crib and the experience sounds like what you describe – he wasn’t ready.
Your plan to try every couple weeks sounds really reasonable. Maybe aim for 6months for the full transition. It was probably in our favor that he was still swaddled in the crib so it wasn’t just a wide open space. Maybe you could try a sleep sack in the crib? I doubt he’ll make the change with zero fussing but for me it wasn’t anywhere near as bad as I was expecting (and I have a pretty spirited baby
)
Good luck!!