Power adapter for an infant swing?

July 22, 2009 10:39 AM

Power solutions for an infant swing?

We have a Fisher Price Cradle N Swing for our 9 week old daughter. It takes 4 D cell batteries. I did not think, when buying the swing, to see if it had an A/C adapter (apparently some do; this model does not). It looks like you can get third party adapters online. Has anyone tried them? Or does anyone know if they do/should/should not work? I obviously don't want the swing to catch fire or something while she's in it!!

posted by dpx.mfx to Home & Garden (7 answers total)

Yes - tons of people "hack" their swings, especially the FP ones. I was TOTALLY about to do it, but I decided against it because the work involved wouldn't be worth it for the short time you'll use it. My (big) 8 month old was pretty much dunzo with that swing at 5 months anyway. We only occasionally put him in it after that age when we were vacuuming or something and needed him off of the floor. Also, kiddo started liking to crawl under it. Strangulation risk if you hack it!

PLUS, In the 8 months of use of our FP cradle swing we only had to buy batteries for it once.

So, unless you plan on having more babies in the very near future and thus using the sh!t out of your swing, I wouldn't mess with it because the resale value of a "hacked" swing is probably worse. People that will want to buy the swing off of you on Craig's List aren't going to trust your hacking and if you resell to a consignment shop, they'll say no.

How-to and strangulation risk
posted by k8t at 10:45 AM on July 22, 2009

PS, my original intention was to buy C and D batteries for our various baby seats and then go with rechargables if we decided that kiddo really liked that product. As I said above, we didn't need to buy anymore!
posted by k8t at 10:50 AM on July 22, 2009

Yeah, I think I changed the batteries in our baby swing once before she decided she hated it. And the first set of batteries got handed down with the swing. I'd find some cheap batteries at the dollar store before bothering to hack anything.
posted by artychoke at 11:12 AM on July 22, 2009

Lifehacker had a post about this very question awhile back.

But - it's just not worth the risk to your baby to rig up something like this. Agree with earlier responses - you will only have to change batteries a few times before the baby gets too big. I considered the same thing, but c'mon, it's worth a couple bucks in Duracells for a safe baby.
posted by smelvis at 11:40 AM on July 22, 2009

We had a F-P swing that you could use with either batteries or an AC adaptor and if the motor in yours is anything like the motor on ours, it won't be worth hacking if you are thinking it'll be something you keep for years on end. The motor on ours crapped out after about 5 months of use so we would have needed to get another one anyway if we needed one for a second kid.
posted by otherwordlyglow at 12:21 PM on July 22, 2009

The baby will outgrow the swing sooner than you think. 9 months, tops. Live with the inconvenience until then. It'll pass faster than you can imagine.

Then revel in suffering the same agony as your parents. My father used to utter the words "oh great, batteries not included" as if it were some sort of epithet. Now I understand why. Those eff'ing things crap out just before you NEED the danged toy to distract the howling little ones. Nowadays the battery compartments require TOOLS to get into them. This as opposed to the wonderfully hazardous metal-edged toys of our youth. Ah, the fun of ER visits for stitches from that new tin car... Memories...

Now I practice up on my old man skills... YOU KIDS, OFFA MY LAWN!!
posted by wkearney99 at 2:36 PM on July 22, 2009

One of the best things we did when we had the Squidlet was get a bunch of rechargeable batteries in all different sizes. We figured even when he outgrew the swing and the bouncy seat there would be toys that needed batteries, and we've been right. So the same three sets of 4 D batteries are still in use 17 months later, and have paid for themselves many times over. (We have three sets so we had a set for the swing, a set for the bouncy seat, and a set for the charger. I got so I was able to change the batteries in the swing without waking up the kid.)
posted by ambrosia at 8:29 PM on July 26, 2009