kicking the swaddling habit

i've seen a number of threads on this subject but i've never really been able to find an answer that takes busy busy busy arms into consideration. our guys want to be free of their swaddles and the effort to wiggle their way out wakes them up at night. but once their hands are free, they have a mind of their own. they push at their faces and pull at their ears and wake themselves up.

so we've tried a few things and i think maybe we're on the right track.

method 1: jacob wants both arms free NOW. so we went straight for the full unswaddle and let him have his freedom. we've tried giving him things to hold onto to give his hands something to do, but he's not interested in that. so last night we tried mittens. eureka! he grasped right down on the fabric and the busy busy arms suddenly stopped being so busy busy. he crashed out immediately. unfortunately the mittens fit loosely so he woke up a few times when he managed to pull them off in his sleep. then DH had the brilliant idea to use socks and tuck them up under his sleeves. that was the last time he woke up.

method 2: owen isn't ready for both arms yet. we've noticed he's starting to find two fingers on his right hand and thought maybe we should just let him have that side. we swaddled just his left arm and let the right arm roam free (no mitten). we put him down, those fingers made their way to his mouth, and that was it. zonked right out.

they slept so solidly that they didn't even wake up for their middle of the night feeding. it was like a dream.

so. good luck to anyone else going through this right now. share your successes and failures, because i'm sure we're going to have to stay on our toes and be ready to adapt.

let's hope night 2 is as good as night 1.

 

I hope you all have a great night tonight. Let us know how it goes!!

 

night 2:

2 methods converged into one. jacob couldn't handle having both hands free and owen's un-socked hand wouldn't let him sleep. so both guys ended up with one swaddled arm and one free arm, socked up to the elbow.

it was a solid night of sleep again until around 1:30, when jacob woke up for a feeding. it was so much easier to dreamfeed owen because he didn't try to get a hand free while the bottle was in his mouth. but the most interesting development was that the free arm allowed them to settle back to sleep easier. there wasn't nearly the struggling and straining against the swaddle that we usually get from them. owen actually ended up talking to his free hand for about 20 minutes and drifted off to sleep. he's never done that before. usually if they're not actively falling asleep they're fussing and crying. i sat on the stairs outside their room and listened to them babble and didn't need to go in there once.

i don't expect it to be like that every night, but it was a nice change. let's hope the success continues.

 

I'm glad y'all had a good night last night!

 

Oh, thank you SO MUCH for sharing. My boys are almost exactly the same age (4 1/2 months), and we are going through the same thing. They sleep great with arms swaddled, but are breaking free a lot lately (with REALLY busy hands too) and waking up. I am so scared to go back to no sleep. I am going to try the sock thing asap!

 

I hope your good luck continues! We went through the busy arm thing and stopped swaddling after that (they started to Houdini right out of it). Hoping for a good sleep for night #3!

 

We full swaddled the twins for a long time. Towards when dd was ready to be 'loose,' we did leave just one arm out. It worked.. gradually they were able to be not swaddled. There may be hiccups along the way, but for the most part it was succesful.

 

as they're getting more accustomed to having an arm free their socked hand is getting a little busier. but so far we've managed to stick to our guns and we're going to give it at least 2 weeks before considering freeing the other arm. we'll probably then swaddle around their torsos so they feel snug, and then eventually give it up completely.

we definitely couldn't have gone cold turkey, though. it's just crazy watching them be bothered by their own hands.

 

QUOTE(piccologirl @ Mar 7 2009, 07:49 PM) [snapback]1218454[/snapback]
we definitely couldn't have gone cold turkey, though. it's just crazy watching them be bothered by their own hands.


Alot of people have found a gradual process of unswaddling to work best. I know I was shocked to see how much their hands actually distracted my babies when they were that little! I hope you have a good night tonight!

 

they're testing my resolve tonight. owen has woken up 5 times already because his one free arm is BUSY BUSY BUSY. i'm committed to letting him learn to have it free, though. we'll just keep helping him back to sleep until it finally sticks.

we did have some luck with loveys during naps earlier today. they usually forget to hold on to them, but we had moderate success when they were crashing out for their last nap of the day, and holding the lovey seemed to give their hands something more comforting to do than poking themselves in the eyes.

 

:hug: I hope he gets used to the 1-arm out soon. Mine are really attached to their loveys now and it helps them sleep.

 

update:

we took our sweet time on this, but i can finally say the swaddle habit has been successfully kicked! :banana: :yahoo:

i know some folks have had success doing a quick transition with one arm free and then both arms a few days later, but our guys weren't going to give it up that easily. we had to do one arm out for about 2 1/2 weeks before we felt like they were accustomed enough to the sensation of freedom to unswaddle the other arm. and once we unswaddled the other arm we did about a week with the swaddle wrapped around their midsections to give them that familiar pressure. then one day we just tossed the swaddles aside completely and we've been swaddle free for several days now.

we did have to deal with a few more nighttime arousals for the first few days. we still use socks to cover their hands up to the elbows, which seems to help keep their need to rub their eyes in check. for the first few days of both arms being free they would wake up and get very interested in figuring out how to take their socks-mittens off. but once the newness of the concept wore off they just rolled with it and now they sleep just as well without a swaddle as they did with a swaddle. putting them down for naps and at night is so much easier now that we've transitioned.



but i have to say, there's nothing quite like walking into their room in the middle of the night because they're awake and babbling, just to catch them in the act of pinching through one sock to grasp the other sock and pull it off. they look up with a very proud, "look what i can do, mom!" look on their faces. yes yes, sweetie, i'm very impressed. now go back to sleep! :lol: