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how to get baby to sleep unswaddled
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Anonymous
| I have a three month old baby who learned to sleep swaddled & with a pacifier. (We followed the Happiest Baby on the Block method). I assumed that by now he would have outgrown his need for a swaddle and we could get rid of the pacifier. However, I cannot get him to sleep without either one. I am really frustrated because if I do not find a nanny, he will be going to day care in a couple of months. He will probably need to sleep without a swaddle at day care. Also, I do not want him to have a pacifier at day care because I think it will lead to germs/illness. Has anyone else also had this issue? With my older child, we never swaddled him and he was able to sleep unassisted without a pacifier at three months. I guess every baby is different or I just created a bad habit??? |
Anonymous
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My DD loved to be swaddled. And, I personally do not believe that swaddling is a bad habit.
What we did is start by leaving just one arm out until she got used to that. Then, two arms out but swaddle the mid-section. To this day, she is 6 mos., we still put a light, cotton blanket in her crib with her (not recommended b/c of SIDS but she really prefers having a blanket). She likes to suck on the ends and cuddle the blanket. The blanket is light enough that we were comfortable putting it in with her. |
Anonymous
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Yeah, I've met other moms who were panicked about the idea that they had to ween their baby off of swaddling at three months, but I have to say - I don't quite get it. We swaddled well into four months and she went to day care and did just fine. At first they lightly swaddled there when it was nap time but pretty soon she outgrew that on her own and we only swaddled at night for awhile. Then she seemed to outgrow that on her own, too (she just wriggled out on her own but kept sleeping through the night).
Just my two cents - I really would not worry about it at this point. |
Anonymous
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My son also started off sleeping with a swaddle and used (and still does) a pacifier. He also has gone to daycare since 5 months old. And I too worried about all of this stuff when he was 3 months nad 4, 5, 6 etc)
In terms of the swaddle: 1) I'd be surprised if your day care would not swaddle your baby if that is the best way to get him to sleep. It's in the day care provider's interest to be able to put the baby to sleep the easiest way possible. 2) If you do want to wean from the swaddle, as a PP said, just slowly remove one arm, then amother, then the legs 3) Or, try loosening the swaddle a bit each time you wrap In terms of pacifier, our son (14 months) still uses it. I have to first caveat that I do feel a bit defensive about this since it seems to be one of the areas that others are very judgemental about. But my decision to keep the pacifier is because this gives him so much comfort (he actually calls it "ma-ma") and although the daycare is great and he loves the social interaction, it's not one on one attention. So, I figured leaving him with a comfort item is the caring thing to do. In terms of germs, if he didn't have the pacifer he would have put toys in his mouth much more often (I observed this in most of the non-pacifier babies) and germs would have been transferred that way. My son has been sick a number of times in the past year but not more often than his other daycare friends. If you don't already know, you can get a pacifer "clip" to keep it atttached to the baby so you don't need to worry about the babies trading them back and forth/dropping on ground, etc. As I mentioned upfront, I did worry about things like this in the few few months, but time has shown me that he is able to wean himself of most every "habit" (swaddling, sleeping in our bed, only falling asleep by motion, breast to bottle to sippy cup, sleeping through the night, etc). So, my closing advice would be try not to stress about all of this too much - it will work itself out. |
clarabow
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| We weaned our babe of the swaddle at around 4-5 months with the one arm at a time strategy and it was a piece of cake. We did it when the general spazziness seemed to have quited down, which had been the reason the swaddling was helpful in the first instance. This was one of many things that has led me to believe we've got a pretty adaptable kid, so, like the PP, I no longer worry so much about "habits." Actually had this conversation with DH this morning on the way in to work -- we are co-sleeping occasionally right now because the little one seems to get more sleep that way. DC has been going through a rough patch with night sleep, frequent night wakings after a couple months of STTN. DH brought up the possibility that we may be creating a habit, but I think it's like the swaddle -- if it's needed, then do it. When it's no longer needed, if the kid is adaptable, the transition probably won't be too bad. Of course, YKMV (your kid may vary). |
Anonymous
| Our daycare has a policy of not having anything in the crib - that includes toys, blankets, bumpers, etc. It is for reasons of liability. So yes, you may not be able to have him swaddled when he is there. |
Anonymous
| OP -- why not confirm your daycare's policies & practices re: swaddling. My daycare has a policy of no loose blankets in the crib, but I don't know whether they'd view a swaddled blanket (or one of those "swaddle me" or similar sacks) quite the same way. |
Anonymous
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I just remembered something - a friend told me that all DC day care centers now must abide by a "nothing in the crib" rule. She's annoyed because her baby naps better with a blanket over him. I don't think the swaddleme blankets with velcro would count though - you could argue those things are almost like another piece of the baby's clothing to some extent.
I still think it's nuts to try and make the baby sleep without being swaddled if he/she really does so much better with the swaddle.... |
Anonymous
| My daycare in DC allowed you to have something in the crib (or even put them to sleep on their tummy, if preferred), as long as you signed a waiver (or was it a consent form). |
Anonymous
| I am having a similar issue...I have a 6 month old who will literally only sleep swaddled tightly. I tried to put him down without it and he screamed bloody murder...I have never seen him do that. He seemed very stressed by the change. So, I swaddled him and he went right to sleep. The issue is that he can break out of it so if he does wake up at night, he breaks out and wont go back to sleep until we re-swaddle him. this is okay if he only wakes once or even twice but sometimes it is 4 or 5 times....any advice? |
Anonymous
| I worried so much about how i could possibly get my DD to sleep without the swaddle. She slept so well with it and didn't seem like she could do without. I didn't want to break a good thing so I swaddled and swaddled--well up until she reached 4mths and started turning. Our pediatrician advised us to WEAN--but we had the heart for it one night and just went cold turkey. We were very SURPRISED in the morning when we realized she slept all night without the swaddle. Try it. Your child might surprise you. |
Anonymous
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our son LOVED the swaddle and we only got him out of it at around the six month mark, we tried at 4 months and baby would not sleep without it - the doctor said not to worry about it and that he would give it up when he was ready. And that's pretty much what happened. There was no way we could get him out of it until he outgrew the startle reflex, once he did, we left one arm unswaddled for a while. Then, after a couple of weeks, we switched to a sleep sack and he didn't miss the swaddle at all.
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Anonymous
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My son was addicted to swaddling, he could not fall asleep unless swaddled. I tried getting rid of the swaddle several times starting at 3 months of age but each time it was a complete disaster. I tried going cold turkey and doing the gradual approach, neither one worked. In the gradual approach, one arm out was as far as it would go, could not go beyond that. At 6 months, he was still unable to go to sleep without being swaddled and my ped said I needed to get rid of the swaddle. I was desperate. Really wanted to get rid of the swaddle, but nothing would work until I found the "swaddleme graduate" swaddle sleepsack from Summer at Target: used it for 2 nights with one arm out and then the 3rd night, both arms were out: he was sleeping in a sleepsack!!! A miracle!!! Highly recommnend it. Here is the swaddleme graduate I am talking about:
http://www.summerinfant.com/categories_products_view/486/SwaddleMe%AE-Graduate.html |
Anonymous
| I think you've gotten really great advice here. One word of caution that we learned the hard way (and maybe this isn't true for all babies) - we waited until almost 6 months to unswaddle, and it was a mistake. Our daughter was fighting the swaddle and waking herself up at night. I think at that point she knew she had hands and was annoyed that she couldn't get at them. There was a night or two where she would wake herself up, but not too bad. |
Anonymous
| DD started daycare at 3 1/2 months and I had them swaddle her with the kiddopotamus swaddle. I tried to wean her from it starting around that time and had some success with arms out for naps but honestly I didn't have much success until a bit after 4 months when she suddenly seemed to outgrow the startle reflex. Give arms out a try but if it doesn't work, swaddle again and try in another week or so. It seemed like over night she got over the flailing arms thing. |