We have found our parenting holy grail... for under $100 (we got it on sale...open box) we have now acquired the one piece of equipment we can't believe we went 6wks without. Oh the lost sleep, what a tragedy.

What is this modern marvel of baby taming? The baby swing. I always figured the bouncy chair would be just as good and my daughter does enjoy "talking" to her bouncy chair friends, but it was only for sitting in while happy and awake. She inevitably has nights where she refuses to sleep and nothing will stop her from being in your arms for hours at a time (unless you want to listen to her scream her head off...which I don't). You think you can wait them out, that they have to stop crying sometime....haha yeah, no! The screaming will only intensify until she is choking on her own vomit and wailing like you've condemned her to death.

But I digress; the swing is awesome. We put her in it for the first time and she smiled at the mobile and promptly fell asleep, by herself with no patting or nursing or anything. It was a miracle. But she was in a good mood that day so the real test of the swing was yet to come...during a "hell day". On "hell day" the baby will fall asleep in small spurts, however, the baby will only sleep while you hold her...ugh! this makes it difficult to do anything like clean the house, take a shower, try and get laid...etc. So, yesterday was our first "hell day" since we got the swing. She wouldn't fall asleep in the swing and she was cranky all day by the end of the night she had fallen asleep on my shoulder. I toyed with the idea of trying to put her down to sleep, but I was scared..."what if she wakes up again?" I asked my husband. "Try putting her in the swing instead of the crib," he said. "Ok, let's try it!" I carefully tiptoes over to the swing, started the lullaby music ahead of time and gently placed her in the seat and let it swing away. Amazing, she didn't wake up screaming like I had dropped her into a pit of snakes and fire!

Oh swing, how I love thee.....

p.s. we go the Fischer Price rain forest swing because we liked the look of it and it was one of the only ones that could plug into the wall (cause batteries are damn expensive).