I have a trip coming up in less than a month. Previously baby has napped in the bassinet attachment of the pack and play but she will no longer fit by the time we will go out of town! She has taken naps in her swing and nights in her crib for MONTHS. I knew I had to transition naps to the crib before this trip and have her used to it because she’ll have to sleep every nap and night in the pack and play crib. Today I just got her down in the crib for her first nap since she was a newborn!!

Anyone interested in how: first of all, she’s like the easiest baby ever for making transitions with. Seriously. So that’s a big help.

But other factors that are important: I’ve established several sleep cues from the beginning.

Sound machine on = it’s sleep time.

So white noise is #1.

Second, I’ve always only used her crib for sleep. Never play. She knows the crib is for sleeping. Same with the swing. I never used the swing for anything other than naps.

I also utilize routine. I say the same basic thing every time I leave the room and leave her to nap: “have a good nap, [child’s name]! Mommy loves you.” Or “Goodnight sweetheart; mommy loves you!” for bedtime. She’s familiar with routine. Subtleties paint a big picture you know!

And her ability to fall asleep on her own is probably 100% necessary for this to work. She’s done that for a good couple months. We started putting her down in the crib after the bedtime routine and hubby would stay by her until she fell asleep. It’s been weeks now and we just put her down, tell her goodnight and we love you, and we leave and shut the door almost all the way. She puts herself to sleep. I don’t think crib napping would work without her ability to do that.

And then to get her from swing to crib, a couple days ago I started putting her in the swing to nap like usual, but not turning it on. It was still, so she got used to not having motion for naps. And today I just felt like it was time. A lot of this was gut/mommy instinct-driven.

Hope these details can be of help to anyone looking to make similar changes! I knew it was only a matter of time for us anyway because she’s almost too long for the swing. She used to be so little in there 😟😟