Changing Napping Routine

We also did day time naps in swing until my Dr. said it was a bad idea (this was at 4 months). So you may struggle a great deal more than us, but we simply bit the bullet and made the transition to crib and adjusted to the fact that it took her a lot longer to go down. In the swing she never cried herself to sleep, but in the crib she did and still does (now 7 months). I let her cry, but she is usually down in 15-20 min.

i'd just do it! my daughter (now 22 months) has always been an amazing sleeper, for both naps and all-night sleep. she always napped in the swing when she was younger too and we just transitioned her one day, and she was fine! i think you and i are really lucky to have babies that sleep well, and your little baby will probably do okay just transitioning. maybe just take her out of the swing when she's already fallen asleep one day, and put her in her crib. if she cries for a while, it's okay, that's normal and that happens with adjustments. after that, hopefully you can put her down for naps directly into her crib, relatively easily.
good luck!

Hi does the swing have a special melody it plays? If it does i would try to put it in the room while putting her in the crib. I know that a similar method worked for my son. He loved spongebob so i put a t.v. With spongebob on it took a week but he no longer laid on me in the living room to watch spongebob and go to sleep. Good luck S.

Hi F.,
We are going through a very similar situation. My nine-month old son slept in his bouncer for naps until he outgrew that and then on a bed until recently when he started crawling and it obviously wasn't safe anymore (though truth be told, it probably hadn't been "safe" once he could roll). Anyway, we've been trying a mini-bedtime routine before naps and putting him in the crib. Since he's slept in his crib at night since we brought him home from the hospital and he gets nursed right before going to bed at night, we've tried giving him his mid-morning and mid-afternoon bottles in the glider (where I nurse him in the evening) and putting him down immediately afterwards. We also turn on his music (I leave classical playing for him all night) which we hope drowns out some of the noise from the household. The first few days were real rocky; we'd only get about a half hour out of him. But this last week he's been doing great! He took an hour-and-a-half nap yesterday afternoon, for example. So my advice would be to try doing whatever it is you do at night (within reason) and see how it goes. Hope this helps!

This is random but you could try shaking your baby's toosh while she's laying down in her crib. I do that before my boys nap and I'm there for barely two minutes. It's a similar rocking feeling only they are already in their crib. I lay him on his tummy and shake his toosh back and forth. He goes right to sleep. It's a Brazilian thing. My mother-in-law started to do it when she babysat for me instead of letting him cry it out for nap time. SInce he would end up going down faster without all the drama I kept it up. It hasn't hurt his nighttime routine at all. We do not aid his sleep at night. he goes down awake and goes to sleep by himself.

hi F., since she is used to the swing, i would rock her to sleep for her naps, she's used to the back and forth movement, so this may work. I lways rocked my babies to sleep at bed time and nap time. J.

I don't think changing her to her crib will be a big issue, for her anyways. She might just surprise you and sleep even more soundly during her naps in the peace and comfort of her crib versus the swing especially since she is used to sleeping in their at night.

If you want to take a slower approach, you could try moving her swing next to her crib in her room for a few days so she gets used to napping in her room.

My only suggestion would be, since she is used to napping in an area that probably has more background noise than her room, put a radio or CD Player or something in there to play to give some background noise. My kids both have a radio/CD player in their room and I play music for them to fall asleep to. It plays throughout all their naps and I turn it off at night right before I go to bed.

Good Luck!

We did this when my son was 6 months old and was starting to get too heavy for the swing. First, we moved the swing into his room and got him used to being in his room for naps. That was a few weeks. Then I started doing one nap a day in the crib and the other 2 in the swing. I just slowly transitioned until all naps were in the crib and the swing disappeared one day. A sound machine really helps, he listens to the ocean, and the room is always very dark. Good luck!

After 11 m of a pattern, it's going to take some crying, that's a long time in the swing, it's going to be a rough confusing change for her, but you can do it.