If you used a SNOO

[Anonymous]

When did you move your baby to a crib? I’ve read it isn’t recommended to continue swaddling past eight weeks but would like to be able to continue to use the SNOO past that point. I don’t want to somehow stunt my babies motor development though. What was your experience like weaning off of the snoo, and do you think that it affected your baby’s ability to learn to roll or any other milestones?

[Anonymous]

You can definitely use a SNOO past eight weeks!

The recommendations to stop swaddling are NOT because swaddling prevents a baby from developing motor skills. You only swaddle when the baby is sleeping - that's not when they're developing those skills. The recommendation to stop is because as those motor skills develop, you risk the baby rolling over and getting stuck on his or her tummy, no arms, and being in an unsafe sleep position without the ability to self correct. (https://www.webmd.com/baby/when-do-you-stop-swaddling-baby#1)

In the SNOO, this is not an issue, as the special SNOO swaddle is strapped down to the bassinet - the baby cannot roll when in the SNOO. The SNOO people recommend weaning off at 5-6 months (https://www.happiestbaby.com/blogs/snoo/transition-baby-to-crib-snoo-weaning-feature)

Personally, we did a one month rental to get through a terrible sleep regression before my baby was big enough for sleep training. We did a sudden wean right at four months to do CIO and move baby into his own room and crib. My kid was a late roller, but I don't think that was at all related to his month in the SNOO, but rather because he had reflux which made tummy time really hard to manage (had to hold him upright after feeds, etc) so he didn't have as much opportunity for "exercise" during his wake time.

[Anonymous]

We used a Snoo for 5.5 months before moving the baby to the crib in his nursery. As the previous poster noted, swaddling doesn't impact the development of motor skills, the recommendation to stop early has to do with rolling over, which isn't a concern in the Snoo. Our baby has hit all milestones on time/early, and transitioned easily out of the Snoo at 5.5 months. I think the experience varies a lot depending on each individual baby, but for us it was really worth it - the baby started sleeping through the night at 2 months and has continued to do so pretty seamlessly after transitioning to the crib.

[Anonymous]

5.5 months

[Anonymous]

Just shy of 6 months. I do not think it adversely affected any developmental milestones. We generally followed the HB recommendations for weaning from Snoo and didn't have any problems with the transition.

[Anonymous]

We transitioned at around 6 months. I think it slowed down her rolling, because she didn’t have the chance to experiment in the crib, but it wasn’t a long lasting issue and she ended up reaching other motor development milestones early (pulling up to stand; cruising; walking).

[Anonymous]

We went to crib at 5 months and sleep trained. We sort of weaned in the Snoo before then but it was baby led not parent led. He started breaking an arm free so we gave him an arm out. He started breaking the other free so we gave him the other out. At some point during month 4-5, we noticed motion wasn’t doing much at all for him so we turned it on wean mode. The last few days before we switched completely to crib, we started him in his crib for his first stretch in a regular old sleep sack and then were too lazy to keep going back to his nursery during wake so he’d eventually end up in the Snoo with it turned completely off, as basically a regular bassinet, since it was right next to our bed. The SNOO was amazing for us months 1-3, maybe helped the 4 month regrsssion be not as terrible as it would have been, who knows, and baby was definitely over it by 5 months.

For reference, he rolled belly to back very early (like 2.5 months), back to belly at just before 5 months, crawled at 7, walked at 11.5. Plenty of floor time during ww and I don’t think you need to worry about SNOO delaying milestones!

[Anonymous]

You should stop swaddling by about three months. Babies need to be able to use their limbs in an unrestricted fashion from that point on. This is when they start finding their hands and learning to put them in their mouths, for example, which may not seem important but is part of coordination, sensory development, motor, and self soothing.

[Anonymous]

4.5 months because I didn’t want her not to sleep when we started daycare

[Anonymous]

Around four months but we stopped using the swaddling part and just kept the thick strap across her chest with her arms out and legs free past about six weeks. She started rolling over on her playmat at fore months so we moved her to her crib.

[Anonymous]

7 or 8 months. Smaller baby. You can free their arms as they get bigger.

[Anonymous]

I used it for my youngest until 7 months. It was an easy transition and I felt better having baby swaddled in there than I did with my older kids (pre-snoo) bc the snoo baby had no risk of rolling over. All of my kids were swaddled well last 8 weeks, I hadn’t heard of that

[Anonymous]

6.5 months. She is my strongest kid. We let her arms be free (the Snoo sacks unsnap at the shoulders if you want to let out their arms) around 4.5 or 5 months. We had her in the large and then XL Snoo sack.

[Anonymous]

Loved the SNOO for two kids, but ended up moving them both out "early." One at 5.5 months, one at 4.5 months. And prior to that, maybe 3 months, stopped swaddling them and just used the strap across their chests. At that point it just seemed like their fighting the swaddle was negatively impacting their sleep more than the getting startled from flailing their arms around would.

No problems weaning at all. They definitely didn't get "addicted" to the motion in a way that was problematic.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We went to crib at 5 months and sleep trained. We sort of weaned in the Snoo before then but it was baby led not parent led. He started breaking an arm free so we gave him an arm out. He started breaking the other free so we gave him the other out. At some point during month 4-5, we noticed motion wasn’t doing much at all for him so we turned it on wean mode. The last few days before we switched completely to crib, we started him in his crib for his first stretch in a regular old sleep sack and then were too lazy to keep going back to his nursery during wake so he’d eventually end up in the Snoo with it turned completely off, as basically a regular bassinet, since it was right next to our bed. The SNOO was amazing for us months 1-3, maybe helped the 4 month regrsssion be not as terrible as it would have been, who knows, and baby was definitely over it by 5 months.

For reference, he rolled belly to back very early (like 2.5 months), back to belly at just before 5 months, crawled at 7, walked at 11.5. Plenty of floor time during ww and I don’t think you need to worry about SNOO delaying milestones!

this was our experience almost to a tee. it was clear that we were in the regression at around 4.5 months-- she was up almost every hour in the snoo (her arms were already out by that point because she kept breaking them out anyway). she figured out how to roll back to belly at around 5 months and we transitioned to the crib and she immediately started sleeping 10-12 hours straight on her belly. didn't even need to sleep train.