So it’s no secret that Lola was a bit colicky at the beginning. And I’m all about survival when it comes to being a mom. You do what you need to do to make it through the day. The kid sleeps when she’s swaddled in a swing with white noise in the background. This was a great thing when she was 8 weeks old, 10 weeks old…but now she’s 12 weeks old. And she’s still sleeping in the swing. For TEN TO TWELVE HOURS A NIGHT. This is not a boat that I’m excited about rocking.
Clearly, she can’t stay in there for safety reasons. And so the day is coming that I need to make her sleep in a crib. I keep getting all serious about it and saying “today is the day she sleeps in a crib!” and then I spend a full day alone with my trio, and we listen to the twins rant during dinner, and we give them all a bath and 8 p.m. rolls around (bedtime for the twins) and then I clean up from the chaos that is the day, feed Lauren and put her in her crib and she spits out her godforsaken pacifier every 15 minutes and cries and on my 11th trip up the stairs to the nursery I say fuck it and put her back in the swing. Because my sanity needs that kid to sleep. Survival, people. Survival.
I am fine with CIO, but she’s too young or I’d Ferber her and call it a night (no pun intended). Since we don’t go anywhere anymore, Joe has an excess of vacation time built up. So I talked to him about taking a week off in February and that will be the week we sleep train Lola and break this swing habit. This way we have each other to fall on when we go back to being sleepless. And if this takes longer than a week, well, then I guess I’m screwed.
Have any of you made the transition from swing to crib? How long did it take and how painful was the process? Also, how old was your little one when you transitioned him/her?
Part of me wonders if being propped up is part of the success of the swing. We have a crib wedge from Ryan’s reflux days which we are thinking about using to help with the transition. I’m not sure if it’s necessary, but it can’t hurt.
I want to cry at the thought of going sleepless again. I mean rock myself in a closet and bawl.
