Sling naps

[NameChangeyMcChangerson]

My DS is 10 weeks. For the first few weeks of his life he'd happily fall asleep after feeding then be placed in his Moses basket and sleep for hours. For the past few weeks, though, he'll only sleep a) on my chest, directly after being fed, if I stay completely and absolutely still - if I move my arm, or indeed put away my nipple that's it b) in the pram, if it's constantly moving. If I need to wait to cross the road he wakes up c) in a carrier style sling - he falls asleep near instantly if he's tired and as long as I walk about for the first 10 minutes will stay asleep if I sit down or if I'm really jiggling him around - basically I can do anything as long as he stays in the sling. For obvious reasons I have picked option c. I have tried transferring him from sling to cot when he's asleep and he wakes up instantly and screams, then will go straight back to sleep if put back in the sling.

I've tried putting him in his cot when he's tired - he doesn't cry, at first, but he just wakes right up, and if left will wriggle for quite a while (maybe 20 mins) and then get upset. At night he's put down awake (after a feed) and does the same wriggling but only for about 10 mins and then falls into a deep sleep. I'm generally very pleased with his nighttime sleep - which makes me reluctant to rock the daytime boat!

In general while I guess I'd rather have a cotnapper, I feel ok with our routine - he's so much easier when he gets enough sleep and I don't find the sling too confining. I'm also really reluctant to do anything that ties us to a set routine and the cot all day - I'm really struggling with spending so much time alone in the house as it is, and we go out every day and in the sling we can do that without him getting overtired. But everyone around me keeps telling me that this is a terrible habit to create, that he should be in a cot, and that I'm going to be screwed when he's too heavy to carry. Part of me wants to ignore them but I have a lot of anxiety around the fact that DS will be in full-time nursery from nine months, so I worry I'm creating habits that I can't sustain and that'll be worse for him, and even traumatic, in the long run. I searched for threads on sling napping and saw lots of 'my 18 month old still does this' - but he's not going to be able to, so should I be really working on creating habits that he can keep going forward? But he's so little now and April is still so far away!

Thoughts, experiences, maybe reassurance?!

My 20 month old napped in the sling until about 4 or 5 months ago, she doesn’t like it anymore. The sling was the best thing I ever bought! Don’t change it!

It’s not a bad habit if he’s sleeping in bed at night. Once he’s too big for the sling he’ll probably be dropping naps anyway! At least that’s what I myself as my 7week old usually naps in the sling too !

Thank you for the replies, but I think my OP was so long and rambling that my key point got lost - which is totally my fault. He's going to have to stop having sling naps at nine months at the oldest as he'll be at nursery, so I can't wait for him to be dropping naps or to do it himself at 16 months. Given this, am I making a big mistake getting him in the habit now?

No don’t worry. Do what works now. And deal with later later. My ds2 is 11 weeks and does the same just sleeps in the sling. For now it works and I’ll deal with later later. He sleeps great at night (for now) so I’m not changing a thing.
Just be pleased that he naps!

Don’t worry. They’re more adaptable than you think. My DS1 was fed to sleep for every nap or pushed in the buggy right until he started nursery at 13 months. There he slept on a floor mat like all the others. But on my days off, he still fed to sleep or napped in his buggy. Nursery will have such a good routine for them he’ll soon get the hang of it.

My dd only slept in the sling, car or whilst I was walking with the pram until she was one. Now she has lovely long (2 1/2 hour) cot naps and has done since she dropped to one nap.
Do what works now. Things change.

I have spent the last 5-6 weeks helping my 4mo twins to find a way of going to sleep by day) that doesn't involve bf. Rocking in a dim room with white noise works well. Once they get over the initial shock of me going back to work next week, we are going to try moving towards going into bed drowsy but awake. I do think things have to change, albeit gradually, but some of that change may come with the child's increasing maturity.
I do have a friend who has a 2yo who needs some mad combination of rocking, back-patting, handholding and singing and the only change is that it now takes up to 90 min every time.

With DD1 I drove myself crazy trying to get her to sleep in her cot so as not to get into “bad habits”. With DD2 I just went with the easy route (not much choice with a toddler to amuse as well!) As a result DD2 had most of her daytime naps in the sling for the first 12 months until I went back to work.

Your baby is still really little and will go through so many phases and sleep regressions in the next few years. While he still needs a lot of daytime naps just take the easy route and don’t worry what will happen at 9 months. Nursery workers are great at getting babies to sleep. They’ve loads of experience and babies are generally less demanding anyone who’s not their Mum!

My DS napped only on me for the first 6 months (sometimes in the car, sometimes in the buggy). My HV suggested trying one nap a day in the co - if it didn’t work then I tried again the next day. Eventually it worked. By the time he went to nursery at 11 months he could do a cot nap. In fact they got him better at napping than I did. They won’t be fazed - they’ll have seen all sorts.

Just thought I'd update this thread as a very immediate example of 'things change'! On Monday DS was really irritable and clearly sleepy and I couldn't quite face the sling for some reason so went to put him in the pram for a continuous walking nap - but when I turned round to put my shoes on he fell asleep in the pram without it moving and slept for 45 minutes! After that, I thought it would be worth giving getting him to sleep in the cot a go - and the last couple of days I've been trying to get him to nap in his cot and it seems he'll currently only do the first nap of the day in there (for almost exactly 45 minutes each time), and who knows whether he'll keep doing that? But he wouldn't do that a week ago, so either way it feels like very immediate proof that things change and what I do with him at 10 weeks is not our destiny for evermore! So thank you so much for all the reassurance.

My very large 14mo still has sling naps - I can't believe we are still doing this. On the one hand it is nice to cuddle, but omg sometimes I wish he could just sleep on his own in a cot.

Having said that, when he started nursery 2 months ago, I thought he would never be able to sleep with them. Initially it took them 20-30 mins of cuddling him to sleep while he cried. Then somehow they managed to get him to sleep on his own after 5 mins of back patting! Miracle-workers!! He would never do this for me!

Anyway point is that he is not unique, they said that lots of babies have a different routine at nursery. So whether you continue to sling sleep or not, you baby will hopefully find their own routine at nursery.