2d top-down animations with the Dope Sheet

What's the best way to set up top-down 2d animations for a character with north/east/south/west orientations? Something like this:


I'm currently just swapping out the main sprite in each of the orientations, which seems to work, but then if I try to modify the position of any other elements (feet, hands, etc.), the rendering of the character becomes really jerky for some reason. Is there anything wrong with this sort of setup?