swaddle catch-22

Hi,

So, my girls are both still swaddled but it's getting to be a challenge. They kick out of them and then can't get back to sleep until we come and re-swaddle and then it starts over. They love to be swaddled when they are not over tired. I'd say it's about 50/50 love/hate with the swaddle. Also, one of them is getting really good at finding a finger to suck on but also gets very frustrated when it doesn't stay in her mouth.

If you swaddled this long did you just go cold turkey to stop? D

If your babies eventually used a finger or thumb to self soothe - how long before they learned to do it efficiently?

THANKS Ladies!

 

With DD we stopped swaddling when she learned how to flip on her belly to sleep at night (she was so detrmined she learned to roll back to belly while swaddled). She won't sleep any other way, and we figured since she is going to roll over anyway, she should at least have her hands free. With DS, we stopped about 2 weeks ago, he started sucking on his hand to self soothe, so we spent 2 night with one arm out of the swaddle so he could suck on it, then went cold turkey, he seemed to do fine without it, but every baby is different.

 

I think mine got that way with swaddling at about the same age. When they started busting out, and busting out was waking them up, we switched to sleep sacks. They had no trouble making the change - if anything they slept better, because they weren't getting cold from kicking their blankets open.

Wish I could remember when mine got good at hand/thumb sucking... It's probably coming soon for yours, though!

 

We swaddled until 5 months. We quit cold turkey and had 2 bad nights. Not nearly as terrible as I thought it would be!

 

We started to wean when they started rolling over. We started by have one arm free and the other swaddled. Then went to both arms out when they learned how to pull it out on their own.

 

I think ours were 5 months as well. They both slept on their stomachs, which seemed to replace that cozy feeling. I was totally frustrated with the catch 22 as well. We tried weaning with arms out, etc....but it didn't work. We just went cold turkey.

Reyna

 

We stopped swaddling at 6 mos. We used miracle blankets and when they outgrew those at around 5 mos., my friend made some extra large receiving blankets for us. For my DD, we weaned her cold turkey. For my DS, who was a little more challenging, we weaned one limb at a time, starting with a leg.

 

we stopped aournd 5 months - cold turkey - first night we made it for a bout 4 hours and then ended up swaddeling for the rest of the night, the next night we tried again and gave them little blankets to hold on to - that did the trick, their hands had something to do so they were happy.

 

We swaddled for naps until 7 months. We kept trying to stop but we just needed the boys to sleep! We stopped at night (and changed to sleep sacs) around 5 or 6 months.

Don't worry about it. If you have a thumb sucker, leave one arm out. I've never met a college kid whose mom comes to the dorm to swaddle him at night, so eventually they all grow out of it!

 

we stopped cold turkey at 3 months and had 1 bad night-i think they sleep better now b/c they aren't fighting to break out of the swaddle and they are trying so hard to roll now. good luck!