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Northern California Babies
When to stop swaddling
For those of you with kids who liked to be swaddled, when did you stop and how did you know it was time? How did you transition them to sleeping without it. Dane is pretty "addicted" to it.
He's not taking naps swaddled (but he is usually in the swing), but he has to be swaddled to fall asleep at night. He'll often wake up frequently when he busts out of it and I know that's when a lot of babies stop being swaddled, but I just can't even imagine him sleeping in his crib without it - he really has no self-soothing techniques yet (and that's a subject for a separate post).
He is starting to roll during playtime too, which adds another element of worry.
So, when did you stop swaddling, and if it was a struggle to transition - how did you do it?
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Re: When to stop swaddling
we started by letting one arm free and swaddling the other 3 exteremities... but her self soothing technique is thumb sucking.... so that's not a ton of help. I think we stopped swaddling her when I went back to work? (early October)
If it is still working keep doing it.
We never had much trouble transistioning. When z was ready we just let her sleep with her arms out, but we may be a little different because of the co-sleeping, we never had to worry about rolling.
Oh, and I was reading the "community responses" on babycenter and there were 5,7, even 12 month-old babies still being swaddled. I was surprised, but I guess if it helps them sleep, it's ok. But on the other hand, if he's swaddled, he's not learning any self-soothing techniques like the thumb-sucking...so then we're stuck in a cycle, right?
I think I'm driving myself crazy with this stuff.
ETA - I've been reading "No-Cry Sleep Solution" to start working on lengthening his nightime sleep (he's often up every 2 hours) and it seems like a lot of the techniques wouldn't work because he's swaddled.
I liked this book (borrow it from DO). I also read the NCSS and I prefered the other one better... are you saying he naps for 2 hours?! That's a good thing!
2 hour naps? Ha! I wish. Naps are 45-60 min. At night he's currently sleeping sometimes as long as 4 hours, but often only 2 hours at a stretch : (
I'll check that book out, thanks : )
DS was swaddled until about 2.5 months. First with all extremeties in, then around 6 weeks, with his arms out as he likes to self soothe with his hands. Then I decided his swaddle wasn't cutting it so we switched him successfully to Halo sleepsacks. His arms are out, his legs are in and he can't kick off the covers no matter how hard he tries (and he works at it! LOL). He's a restless sleeper in general so it works for us.
As for how long he sleeps, he still wakes up quite frequently. The longest he ever slept was for 6 hours. And he did it once. Mostly he goes down between 7-9 (his choice usually) and then wakes up between 2-4, eats, goes back to sleep until 5-6, eats and usually goes back to sleep for at least another hour. Lately he's been waking more often but not needing to eat.
Peyton was consistantly breaking out of it around 5 months, so we stopped then.
It was a struggle for a few nights. The new found freedom was a bit much for him, but he eventually adjusted.
wow, scary, ditto on all accounts!
No advice, but wanted to add that you might check out parents.berkeley.edu - I recall a page all about swaddling there. Could be some useful info.
And our little guy is also doing the 4 hours max, 2 hours more often thing lately. He's done up to 6.5 hours (once) and 5.5 hours several times, but lately it is has been SO hard... 3-4+ times per night. I feel like I've been run over by a truck... the constant wakings seem to affect my whole body! Let's hope both our little guys get the hang of longer stretches SOON!