Swing Transition: Days Two and Three

As I wrote in my last post, yesterday Lillian went down for her first nap in the swing with no motion. My original plan was to wait three days to move her to the pack n' play, but the transition from swinging to not swinging went so well that I was considering doing it more quickly. For her second nap, we had an appointment with a title company to refinance our house, so she fell asleep in the car.

For her third nap, I did the same routine as the morning nap, but she starting trying to roll onto her side in the swing and I decided it was time to try the pack n' play. I placed her in there with two of her favorite toys: A Lamaze doll and the Fisherprice Seahorse. And the screaming began. It was a total replay of Day 1, only I was terrified it would last much, much longer because Lillian didn't know that the pack n' play was a place for sleep. I kept going in and hugging, kissing, and patting her, and I even picked her up one time, but I couldn't stop her from screaming. After 30 minutes of screaming, she stopped crying and started sucking on her hand. She cried, quieted down, cried, quieted down, and then she fell asleep five minutes later. Similar to Day 1, she woke up after 15 minutes and I had to run in and turn the blow dryer back on, (and to answer Alicea's question, we do run a fan when she sleeps, and turning on the fan is part of the naptime/bedtime routine, but apparently the sound isn't loud enough to help soothe her when she is fussy). Then she slept another 50 minutes. She did not wake up smiling like she did yesterday, though. Instead she woke up crying and I felt a knot in my stomach, wondering if I did the right thing. But, once she was up and playing, she was all smiles and loving her mom again ;)

The next time she went down was for the night, so we did our routine and I put her in the pack n' play. She started playing with her doll, and, after a few minutes, got frustrated and started crying. After about five minutes of fussing/crying, I went in and took the doll away and hugged and kissed her. She smiled at me. After that, I watched her on the video monitor for twenty minutes as she played for a while, then sucked on her hand, and then went to sleep! I seriously could not believe it! It was too easy.

Seriously, the crying was about as bad as the time we got stuck in traffic and she wanted out of her car seat. It sucked and broke my heart, but it was not as bad as I feared and I think it was totally worth it to get her used to sleeping in a "bed."

Last night she was up a lot to nurse. And she did wake up once when I knew she wasn't hungry because she had just nursed - She cried for about five minutes and then went back to sleep.

Today (Day 3) was okay. She didn't nap well. She cried when we put her down for naps, but it was just like the fussiness she's had at many nap times in the swing. There was one nap where she slept, fussed, slept, fussed, slept, for an hour, which was unusual. So, I think she is still getting used to the new sleeping space and position, and I am hoping she'll start sleeping better soon!