Graco Soothing System Gliding Baby Swing, Abbington

The media could not be loaded.  We love this thing, I really can't stress enough how awesome it is and our newest kid is getting a ton of mileage in it. We purchased it when he was about 2 months old and now he's 3.5 months-ish and we couldn't be happier with it. It's amazing how one device like this can be such a large part of your daily routines and time a little person spends inside of it. Like what a mattress salesman tells you, spending a third of your life in bed so don't skimp on the mattress, I feel the same about this for our baby. Our only regret is not getting it sooner, cliche as that statement is in a review, it's oh so true. I put my Graco infant car seat in the glider as well but I'll get into that at the bottom, scroll down if that is all you want to read, first I'll comment on the official functions.***POWER CORD*** First I'd like to just get a point in that having the power cord option is the main reason I was looking into getting something new as we had bouncers and swings, which were all battery powered and I was just sick of it. Battery only devices are SO ANNOYING in my opinion, not only because they chew through D batteries like crazy but as the batteries life decrease the power of the motor/swinging ability decreases simultaneously so you are left with a poorly functioning product more than half the time. The poor functionality of battery only devices is my main gripe here, but the expense of the batteries is also there. This corded glider, on the other hand, gives you perfect functionality ALL OF THE TIME and this can't be understated. When you do need wireless operation unplug the cord from the bottom of the leg on the unit and it goes straight to battery power without turning off or interrupting service, later plug it back in and seamlessly back to corded power. Excellent feature! Props to Graco for risking the occasional law suit for the 'one in a million' tragedy associated with cords to give us a superior product.***Bouncer*** What I'd call the main feature, at least for us, the bouncer. This is the best replication of being driven in a car you could get from a device, for those babies who sleep so well in the car but not at home, this is your answer. I don't have this issue personally but I know this would fit the bill. Our little one cries more in the car than in this seat, literally. It has a 5 point harness that is familiar to a car seats harness, it straps on differently but I can safely assume it feels very similar to the baby and gives them that swaddled feeling and it is hands down much better than the crotch only harnesses of nearly all bouncers and swings I've seen from the past. Combine the nice gliding motion, built in vibration and the snug and comforting harness and you have an infant driving simulator. The bouncer of course comes off of the glider, much like a car seat as well with it's handle over the top that adjusts and locks into overhead or back position just like our Graco car seat. We don't often use the bouncer stand alone, because it's so good in the glider, but it is useful on occasion. If this bouncer had the automatic bouncing feature seen in some along with it's vibration it would be the king of all bouncers, but you can't have it all and the glider makes it a seldom used feature as it is.***BASSINET*** Next is the bassinet, I don't have much to say about it as we almost never use it. We nap our little guy in the bouncer pretty much exclusively. If you want your baby to sleep next to you at night then it would be more than ideal. Our baby is in his crib at night so I can't say much for it other than it seems very solid and well made. I would think it is a very appropriate place for a baby to sleep every night if that is what you're looking for. I saw a review say that it was too small before I purchased it. Ignoring that review it was still BIGGER than I expected considering it attaches to the glider and you're not expecting a bassinet akin to a wooden rocker half the size of a crib or something. It seems pretty large in my opinion for what it is, which makes it seem like a good nightly sleeper and I'd have no qualms about using it. I don't know what they were thinking as I think if you're baby is too big for this bassinet they can probably stand up with hand assist which would make this pretty dangerous to still be using. For a young baby who can't crawl out of it, this bassinet will not be too big. Both of my kids were/are 95% height + weight for all of infancy/toddler for what it's worth, so my opinion of size shouldn't be skewed in the wrong direction.***CAR SEAT*** Now for my newly discovered and really cool bonus feature that I am not suggesting anybody to use, but rather showing that I am doing it. Graco obviously will never endorse and will always openly forbid any usage other than is specified by them. That being said, what I am doing is very safe and I can't imagine in a million years anything that could happen to hurt my child in any way, that is, putting my Graco infant car seat on the glider. I posted a couple pictures and a video showing so you can see the details of how I do this. It doesn't lock into the same place the bouncer and bassinet do, as that would not work and be dangerous. The car seat sits on the bars below as seen in the pictures. I put the arm of the car seat in the far back and locked position and it holds it in place, not that it even needs that stability, but it makes it rock solid. In the video I am using one hand to operate a camera so it looks a little half hazard, and it's not made to do this, but I assure you it's super easy and gentle. It allows you to use the gliding and music functions of the glider while the baby is in the car seat. The advantage here is to let your baby sleep after a car ride, instead of waking them up, I can not only leave them in the car seat, but have it glide to really keep them sleeping a while in many cases. Often the time works out so that I change and feed him a half hour or so before leaving to go somewhere. This way I can put him in the car seat and have it glide him to sleep and not have to wake him up to put him in it later. It is very convenient and I wouldn't be surprised to see Graco officially make these gliders attach to the car seat in a more official way and market this feature as it's great.TL;DR Watch the video =D

This was one of our best buys, and we bought 2 of them for our twin boys. They weren't gifts; we paid for them, which makes me feel like if there was a reason to not like them it would stand out even more to us.=== DURABILITY = 5/5 ===We have been using them since our boys came home on February 10th (so ~4 months), and they're both working as new. There are no standout issues that would let me decipher between the ones we have and a new one out of the box.=== SETUP = 4/5 ===Setup was "fun". I swear that they make baby gear and toys with the intention of giving the dads something to tinker with. Nothing was difficult about it, though. It was just a process, and it took me about an hour to assemble two of them. I really recommend following instructions verbatim.=== GLIDING FEATURE 5/5 ===They glide really well. There are settings of 1 to 6, and we never need more than 2. More than that is just too much. We haven't had any of the issues that other reviewers seem to be having regarding the gliding part. It takes a moment to built its momentum when you first start, and again if you stop it for any reason (like putting the baby down in there), but it gets going again without issue.=== SOUND MACHINE 3/5 ===We have made good use of the sound machine, but it is nothing to brag about. We have those little owl nightlight sound machines, and those are better. That said, they do work, and they work to provide a little background noise to prevent the bumps in the night from waking up the babies. I do like that they don't shut themselves off automatically unless you specifically set the sleep feature.=== BASSINET ONLY 5/5 ===Our boys are just now outgrowing the bassinet portion of them (the boys are roughly the exact length of the bassinet). Having a bassinet that you can put anywhere came in way more handy than I ever would have thought. It allowed us to have the babies just about anywhere in the house near us while in comfort and safety. It even came in very handy to let us have one baby in bed between us if he was having a hard time sleeping at night. Just being near us, even with the barrier, made the difference.=== BASSINET GLIDER 4/5 ===This is the mode that has seen by far the most use by us. Why 4/5? With how the bassinet sits on the glider (it just rests in place) it has a tiny bit of play in that it can lean slightly. Well, slightly is enough to further encourage the baby to slowly creep towards the bottom of the bassinet over longer periods of time. It has never been a cause for concern for us, but it'd be nice to have it fit 100% firm in place.=== BOUNCER 4/5 ===The bouncers on these things are really nice looking and well built. Our 18 month niece has popped a squat in them multiple times when we're not looking and they haven't had any issues retaining their original form. The boys seem to be comfortable in them, and they're very easy to carry around. I would give a 5/5 here if they had a rocker box on them. We have another pair of bouncers that do have that feature and they're more useful for that reason alone. Still, these are a great inclusion to the package.=== BOUNCER GLIDER 4/5 ===This is the mode that has seen the least usage by us. These are kept in our bedroom, which is probably the only reason why. Otherwise I could totally see us making use of this mode as it would raise the boys to a comfortable viewing level while we're sitting on the couch, etc. The glider unit as a whole is not easy to move around the house, though, so it just isn't something we'll use.=== OVERALL 4.5 / 5 ===We love them. At their MSRP of 240 I'd say that'd be a bit steep to be worth it versus other options. We paid 160, which is a fair price. Because the boys are getting too tall to be in the bassinet, we're going to be passing them on to other people soon. While 160 might seem like a lot for only 4ish months of use, I would do it again. Sleeping and/or happy babies = happy parents. Being able to sleep as a parent of infants is worth a lot.

The media could not be loaded.  Our baby is not born yet but I have just put the thing together and it looks awesome I love that it's a complete system so you don't have to purchase a separate bassinet. It's somehow hard to put it together but it's not impossible it looks so good and it doesn't take a lot of space I love that you can use it in multiple ways. and about the speeds I'm not sure yet but I think for newborns you should stick with speed number one for a while because it's not that slow! I love that you can take the chair out and move it around the house! and it works as a rocker as well along with the vibration of course! That's a great option!I attached some photos and two videos(it only allowed me to attach one video though) to make sure you have the complete idea about the system, because when I was searching I really needed someone to take video or take more photos so I can decide...trust me I've been searching for very long time and I've read a huge number of reviews and questions about tons of products and this is the best that I found ! I got it for $203 but it's worth the priceI also love that it has six speeds timer, and a lot of musical and sound effects