Can you swing it?

So, it doesn't exactly fit in with our decor, but the aquarium swing is our new favorite piece of furniture. It's been a close race these last few weeks between the swing and the Baby Einstein bouncing/vibrating chair, but the swing has taken a clear lead recently due to its ability to make Sawyer sleep for four hours straight.
Scott has expressed some concern about whether it is advisable to allow a three-week-old to swing back and forth at Mock 7 for hours on end. I saw no warning signs on the instructions.
I am actually amazed by the things we do with our newborn. Friends come over, wash their hands and VERY carefully pick the baby up supporting his head in a perfect cradle.
Scott and I carry him around one handed, stuffing a pacifier in his mouth that has fallen on the floor five times and jiggling him so that his head shakes back and forth like one of those bobble-headed dolls in the back of low-rise Pontiac.
Before you go calling social services, a book actually told us to do this. When the baby gets fussy, you swaddle him so tight in a blanket that he screams, turn him on his side, stuff a pacifier in his mouth, go "SHHHHHHHH" as loud as possible directly in his ear and then jiggle him like Jello. It may sound like child abuse, but the results are phenomenal. Like a switch being flipped the baby stops crying.
Scott does this other thing that actually kind of terrifies me where he folds the baby in half to make him fart.
Gas is a newborn parent's greatest obstacle. We seem to be constantly trying to expel it at one end or the other. I do this milkshake maneuver where I more or less toss the baby in the air a few times to make the gas bubbles rise to the surface and then I burp him. Picking him up by the torso or slinging him across a knee or shoulder seems to work well too.
So now that you are all horrified, let me just say that we may not sterilize his bottles in boiling water or change his diaper in the middle of the night and - in a pinch - we may use a blanket or the onesie he's wearing to clean spit up, but I happen to think we a doing a rather fine job with this kid, even if we do let a swing do the baby sitting.