Tuesday, September 27, 2016

Swaddling

The other night the kids were in bed and Scott and I were in our designated spots on our sofas. I was on my phone typing away and Scott looked at me and said "you sleep training babies over there?" Haha! It really tickled me because yes, the answer was yes. I like helping Mommas and giving them advice on how to get their babies on a schedule and sleeping good at night!
Let's talk swaddling!!

"Swaddling a baby under three months of age is like a miracle sleep trick but they will only respond to it if it is done exactly correctly and is tight in the right places....it will make the difference between 2-3 hours of sleep in a row and 6-10 hours of sleep in a row." --Moms On Call

I learned a lot about swaddling with Bennett. I swaddled Campbell but I also didn't have any sort of routine or schedule with him until he was 10 weeks old so those first few weeks were just a little different with Campbell. The swaddle played a bigger part in our lives this time around since I started Babywise right away.
At first Bennett did not like to be swaddled. He grunted and fought it and those noises kept me up so I thought "alright fine we just won't do the swaddle and that will be nice because we won't ever have to mess with the pain of transitioning out of the swaddle." But he wasn't sleeping long stretches like I knew he was capable of doing so I reached out to a sleep consultant that I know and she instructed me to swaddle him back up! So I did. And the first night I got him swaddled correctly he slept all night for the very first time.
I realized I wasn't getting Bennett swaddled tight enough (even though I thought I was because it seemed tight) so he was able to grunt and work his way out. The trick was making sure his hands were relaxed and down by his side before wrapping him up. I used the Aden + Anais Easy Swaddle and/or the Halo Swaddle. I took my time with it (because this was the difference in good sleep and not good sleep) and made sure to get that first flap tucked over and under that left arm as tight as I could. I finished wrapping my little burrito up then I zipped the woombi swaddle over him to make sure he couldn't move those arms. You can laugh (because we certainly did) but it worked! Bennett LOVED it and slept so soundly from that point forward. It's crazy how something as easy as getting your baby swaddled correctly can make that much of a difference but it can.

When it came to dropping the swaddle I just did it cold turkey. I figured it was easier to do it all at once vs. having him get used to a bunch of new transitions every few days or weeks. A lot of people try dropping it for naps first but it's definitely easier to drop it at night first. They get in a much deeper sleep at night and it's easier for them to find their comfy spot. The first night for us was not good. The second night Bennett slept perfectly! I very slowly transitioned Campbell out of his swaddle and I much prefer just dropping it cold turkey. It took just one night with Bennett and we were done with it vs months of trying to drop it with Campbell.

So there's my swaddling tips! Most of it I just learned from reading Mom's On Call so if you want to learn more I suggest reading that book. Like I've said before, it has a lot of really great helpful information.

2 comments:

  1. At what age did you move either boys into their own room at nighttime? I'm still struggling with just pulling the plug and doing it��

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    1. 6 weeks with Campbell and 4 weeks with Bennett. I love moving them to their rooms. We all sleep so much better and it feels good to get my own room/space back. ☺️

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