Swaddling was great...

Our babies are almost 4 months old now, and until recently they have just loved swaddling. We have them in the "baby burrito" whenever they go to sleep. They are now getting strong enough to bust out of their blankets (both the miracle blanket and regular blankets) and wake themselves up several times a night! I'm thinking this is around the time we had to stop swaddling our first son as well....but I can't remember how we made the transition to going to sleep without being swaddled. It seems like laying on their tummy is the next best thing to them, but they don't become immediately sleepy like they do when I swaddle them. Any suggestions? How did your babies make that change? How long did you swaddle yours? Thanks!

Reyna

 

We just went cold turkey. As soon as they started wiggling out of the swaddle, we put them in sleep sacks. DD was first, DS followed a few wks later. And it was really ok! Didn't seem to make much difference in how well they slept.

 

We swaddled our girls until 5 months. We started leaving their arms out of the swaddles and then their legs until just their middle was swaddled. The first few nights of leaving their arms out were really hard, but they adjusted. They sleep in sleep sacks now.

 

i started using huge flannel pieces about 4ft square to swaddle and did that until they were 8 months old. then they were totally busting out and crawling around in the cribs so we starting tucking them in (like you would a big kid). just laid the blanket on top of them. the automatically began sleeping on their tummy at that point... before i had the large swaddle blankets, i used sleep sacks.

 

We un-swaddled the boys in stages, starting at about 5 months. First we left one arm out for about a weeks, then both arms out. From there, DS1 was able to sleep well in a sleep sack from about 6 months, but DS2 needed a couple of extra weeks in the half-swaddle before he'd sleep in the sleep sack (I just kept trying him in the sack for a nap every few days, and if he fussed a lot, I'd half-swaddle him.)
Good luck!

 

We weaned them slowly starting at about 5mos. (They really loved the swaddles) First one arm out, then both arms out, then eventually no swaddles.

 

We stopped kind of accidently. One of the twins had a fever and I didn't want to swaddle her because I was worried she would be too warm. Maybe a little Tylenol (for the fever of course!) helped the process, but it didn't even seem to faze her that I didn't swaddle her. To keep her warm I kept swaddling her from the waist down, leaving her arms out. Still didn't seem to bother her so I switched to a onesie and sleeper. She continued sleeping through the night! After a couple of weeks I started the same process with the other twin. She was constantly breaking out of the swaddle anyway which may explain why she never seemed bothered when we eventually stopped with her also.

They were about 4 months.

 

Mine chose for me. They hated being swaddled in the beginning , then loved it from 3-5 mo and then they started kicking and wiggling out of them. Every time they would wiggle out we would rewrap them, but then we just gave up and laid a blanket on them. Now they dont get swaddled at all. Next step...moving them outta my room! Heh Heh

 

We did cold turkey and started putting them down awake and doing CIO at the same time. It was sort of out of necessity because we couldn't rock them to sleep without the swaddle -- they just wouldn't fall asleep. So we did the whole bedtime routine except the swaddle, then just put them down and walked out. The first few nights were pretty ugly, but they've been great sleepers since then. Amy did wake up a few extra times the very first night (Sarah was already sleeping through), but she put herself back to sleep each time.

The reason we gave up the swaddles when we did was that Amy was waking up with it just wrapped loosely around her -- so clearly she'd been breaking out of it at some point during the night and continuing to sleep. I was worried about it being a choking hazard, and I was also just ready to stop messing with it.

 

We did like Heather. My friend made large flannel blankets, and we reverted to swaddling them like we did when they were newborns. We swaddled until 6 months. We tried stopping at 4 mos and they just weren't ready. We tried again at 5 mos, and again no luck. At six months, it was still a rough go of things, but they eventually were weaned (Hannah cold turkey, Ben limb by limb).