It's a swing thing

One of my friends from college and his wife sent us a swing for the baby. They have a 16-month old and say he loved his and still tries to climb in, even though he's getting to be a bit big for it.

Unlike most kids, the car and vibrating movements and devices don't provide instant soothing for Ava. But hopefully she'll dig this. Especially during the 2 a.m.-5 a.m. period when she gets mysteriously cranky EVERY NIGHT and nothing soothes her except one of us holding her while either standing next to the bed swaying, or bouncing up and down gently on a big exercise ball. These are the things you do in hopes of getting even one more minute of sleep with a newborn in the house.

Reclining while holding or jiggling her does not work. Neither does anything that's actually comfortable for us too. Like bouncing her on our lap or stomach in bed. Or patting her gently while she lays on her side. She's not having it. This child's internal bubble level device could apparently be used to calibrate instruments because nothing besides bouncing upright or reclining at a precise 45-degree angle will do. Egads.

Which is why on most nights for the past couple weeks at our house, you could find one bleary-eyed, partially awake parent trying to keep their butt firmly on a ball and their feet firmly on the floor, while bouncing up and down with a limp, though content, baby clutched to their chest. In the dark. At 3am. Aaah, the joys of parenthood.

So my hopes were high when the swing arrived. This is the before shot, right out of the box. About an hour later, looky, looky: a cotton candy pink contraption almost guaranteed to provide hours of soothing movement for the baby and peace for us.
And here's Ava on its inaugural run.

Seems to work great, she slept in it for a bit, and my fear that it might malfunction and fling her across the room while Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star plays eerily in background was unfounded. Gold star for some swing designer toiling away in obscurity somewhere.

Unfortunately, it only kept her happy for about 4 minutes last night at 3:30 a.m. Oh well. At least she doesn't have colic.