Baby only naps in sling

[georgiamum]

my 12 month old will only nap in the sling. He is getting so big and so heavy that I just can't keep doing this for much longer. He takes two naps of at least an hour every day. About half of the time I can lay him down after he's been asleep for 15 minutes, but the rest of the time he wakes up as soon as I put him down. If I try to nurse him to sleep and then lay him down, he wakes up. I don't want to have him nap in my bed on the second floor without me there, because I'm scared that he will off, get hurt, etc. and so nursing him down in my bed isn't an option.

how can I get him to take his naps somewhere besides the sling?

[Carhootel]

can you sit down once he's asleep in the sling? what about sitting in a rocking chair and reading while he sleeps in the sling in your lap? My ds would only sleep in the sling for a while too and I could never transfer him without waking him, sometimes once he woke he would nurse back down and I could sneak away but I found that if I wore him on my back in a carrier I could transfer him down much easier (maybe because he wasn't up against my breasts?). We also had a futon in our house and found a place to put it on the floor so I could nurse him down without worrying about him getting off/getting hurt. Maybe with the sling he likes the snugness and warmth? What about nursing him down while swaddling him?

When I was really fed up with having to wear ds for all his naps I started trying lots of different things to see if I could get him to nap other ways - strollers, car rides, back carries, just letting him go until he crashed, and a routine of dark room, soft music, white noise and giving him a toy to play with and doing skin to skin - it would "trick" him to sleep kind of. After trying all sorts of different things I found a few things that would work and tweaked them all to get a nap routine that works for us. most days