If your DC only used to nap in a sling, when and how did you stop doing it?

[M78]

My DD2 is nearly 7 mo and she only naps in a sling. I have tried to get her to sleep in her cot/pram/car seat, but she would only stay asleep for a max of 30 min, in the sling she normally sleeps between 90 min to 2 hrs. I don?t have a problem with it, it allows me to get on with what I need to do around the house or even to watch tv, read a book if I am tired, the problem is my DH , he believes that I am making a big mistake here, he says that she is now old enough to be able to nap in her cot and that I will get to the point when I will be unable to carry her and then we will have a child that can?t sleep during the day. So my question is, did anybody do the same with their DC and how and when did they eventually make the transaction from sling to cot? Was it a painless process? I really just want to reassure my DH that what I am doing is not weird and that I am not going to create any sleeping problems for our DD2. I must add that also a couple of friends have commented negatively about the fact that she is carried in the sling 2hrs a day, and this has made my DH even more determined to make me stop doing it!

No if it works I would carry on with it! You can get all sorts of slings to carry older children - I have got a Patapum which I wear on my back with DS (18mo) and it's very comfortable. As they get older, they nap less and they act differently as well so there may come a natural progression to a different nap technique. When DS is tired he has taken recently to lying down on the floor as if he is going to sleep (still needs a bit of persuading to actually sleep though!)

How do you get her to sleep at night?

She is fed to sleep and she normally sleeps until 5am or 6am and then I feed her again. If she wakes up before that I normally pat her and 8 out of 10 times she goes back to sleep. The feeding to sleep is another point myself and my DH do not agree on!

she will transition fine - i only used a sling (for all transporting, not just naps) till my dd was 11 months old, and it took about a week to get her used to buggy naps (i was going back to work!) - i took her for a walk before she was too tired and grumpy, and gave her a snack to distract her from the fact she was falling asleep! She cried a bit the first few times but after a week was drifting off happily. (Prior to that she would also feed to sleep on my lap or on the bed which was handy for when i didn't want to wear the sling).

does she sleep in a cot at night? if so, i wouldn't think it would be that hard to transition when you're ready, but 7 months is still really little. enjoy it while it lasts, my 18mo won't get in the sling at all now, and hasn't for 6 months. She has her naps in my bed or her bedside cot, in the buggy, or on the sofa now. IMO naps in the cot are overrated, I much prefer getting out the house for one in the buggy than being trapped inside, especially now the weather is getting better.

I'd bet that once you get to the point where you've had enough, she will be ready too.

OMG her sleep sounds amazing! i think your DH should count his blessings!

it depends if its a problem to you, i am guessing that babies across asia and africa nap in slings if mama is working. sounds bohemian to me but also heavy work. i personally needed some space from DD

i mean bohemian in a good way, exciting , different

Hello - I am in the same position with my 11 month old DC2, who also only naps in the sling. Like you, I am fine with it (it beats the almighty stress I went through trying to get DC1 to nap in a cot/bed/hammock) but I am going back to work soon and have a nanny starting so I am trying to wean him off the sling a bit.

What I am doing is two things:

1. Rocking him to sleep in my arms then putting him down in bed for a nap. When he gets used to this I plan on rocking then putting him down slightly awake. When rocked to sleep like this he does sometimes wake up and needs to be rocked back to sleep. He settles himself to sleep at night so I'm hoping it's only a matter of time before we get there with naps.

1. Buying a parent-facing buggy so that our nanny can use that instead if it proves too difficult to settle/re-settle him to sleep in bed.

I've heard so many people say that their babies quickly got too heavy for a sling but I just don't get it myself and suspect they are simply using the wrong sling. I could carry my DC2 all day and I'm tiny. I can't think how the human race survived without prams for so many hundreds of thousands of years if our babies were so heavy (sorry, slightly off topic maybe...)

oh and fwiw when we switched to the buggy my dd settled better in an outward facing buggy - think she was more able to tune out whereas when i tried with parent facing she got pissed off that she could see me but i wasn't picking her up.

and nomoresleep, my dd adapted v quickly to getting to sleep in different ways with my childminder, a few tears but nothing horrendous, you may also find the nanny doesn't mind a sling too!

I'm so glad to hear that people have managed to get their DCs to nap in ways other than a sling - you have cheered me up no end.

DS (3 months) won't even get as far as calm or drowsy during the day unless he's in the sling, and since he can only stay awake for 30-45 minutes before overtiredness kicks in, I spend a lot of time wearing him!

At night he'll happily sleep in his cot, but he will (a) be tired & drowsy then and (b) happily feed to sleep, neither of which ever happen during the day.

(Although I can't say that the thought of him still being in the sling at 11 months fills me with joy - but hopefully by then he'll have learnt how to stay awake for longer!

Thanks for your replies, I actually really love having her napping on me, I can get on with my day and she goes off to sleep happy and she wakes up rested and with a big smile on her face! I think I will have to convince my DH that when the time comes I will manage to get her to sleep in pushchair/cot.

Would you like to come and take my DS for naps too??

It is lovely though, isn't it? Although I find it wearing having him attached to me all day (no pun intended!) I do enjoy looking down and seeing him all curled up on my chest. And when he squeaks in time to my footsteps it's very cute.

AngelDog I've read a few of your posts and it's like we have the exact same baby, only I have the girly version!

I am currently being firm on the nap-time in the cot idea, by keeping going in to check on her while she cries (yes, I know people will yell at me for not staying with her and calming her as she's only 13 weeks, but seriously those people should come and attempt that with my DD - it seems to just make her worse when she can see me). This means she'll have a 30/40 minute nap two times a day in the cot, with me giving her a long nap by having her in the sling. Occasionally she surprises us and will get past that 30-40 minute mark and then she stays asleep for up to 2 hours, but that's a definate rarity.

By the way, if people have got a DD like mine, it is possible to get her to nap in the pushchair as long as she can't see out. I end up pegging a muslin over the pushchair and eventually she goes to sleep (with no screaming!). You can buy fancy blackout blinds for pushchairs, but the muslin works for me...

Littlest, your name sounded familiar, and I realised we'd both been on the overtired & will-I-always-be-wearing-a-sling threads. Can we compare notes? Rather than hijacking M78's thread, I'll bump the sleep resisting 3 month old thread (later or tomorrow, probably) - I'd love to hear how you've made progress. (In fact, you inspired me enough to manage to get DS off to sleep on me this afternoon - a whole 30 mins or so of him in the cot, asleep - hooray!)

Back on topic, I don't know if people have seen it, but the last comment on this thread was relevant to this sling discussion (and cheered me up no end).

Angel Dog - sorry, hadn't been on Mumsnet in a while due to chronic knackeredness!

See you on the other thread