To Swing or Not to Swing? Baby Swing!! Not The Other Kind.

One of our friends gave us a baby swing. She said "Oh, this thing was a God-send. We would just put the baby in it and he would fall right to sleep. He always took his naps in it". Their son had outgrown it to the extent of practicing escape artist in it.

I gladly accepted the swing, as Amara often fights sleep and I never quite know where to lie her for her naps once she has fallen asleep. The floor is too hard and she wakes up. The playpen is too low and graceful as I am (ahem...sure), I can not for the life of me set her all the way in the bottom without jerking or messing up in some way on the way down. The couch is unacceptable as I am afraid that her first time rolling will be right off the couch and she will have PTSD and never roll over again. And, ridiculous mother hen that I am...I carry her up and down the stairs as little as possible. I figure the less often I carry her up and down, the less the risk of me falling down them with her in tow. I know, I know....ridiculous right? But I am terrified of falling down the stairs with her, which is already happened once. Ok, I fell down stair. Singular. But it still scared me enough to never want to do it again. And I hurt myself. It still hurts, and that was 3 months ago.

So you see how complicated this naptime has become. I often just end up holding the little rugrat the entire duration of the nap, which screams "spoiled" and "beginnings of bad habits". So I thought this swing would solve my conundrum. I would put Amara in it when she started flailing arms and fussing, and she would pass out and have a happy nap and wake up and do it all over again.

Wrong. I put the little bugger in there and suddenly things look different from that heigth or angle or general position. And very, very interesting. So she sits in the swing, content but awake. And I sit there and wait for her to fall asleep, the whole time staring at her, my arms empty, and feeling like this swing is taking my place, doing my job. And she sits there, looking around, stuck in a swing, captivated. Not doing her "dead bug" on the floor (this is where her arms and legs are straight up in the air like a dead bug-she's learning her muscles) or sitting like a big girl in her Bumbo or grasping at toys or getting tummy time. Nothing, nothing but staring at things happening. Or at mommy, staring back.

I'm not sure what theories there are out on swings, although I can just imagine by way of my own emerging feelings towards them. I haven't done research on it, I haven't talked to other mommies about it. I think I will try it a few more times, but I might just end up calling it a baby forgetter. Stick your baby in this and forget about her for a while.

Don't know if I can do it.