Tell me how you stopped swaddling

MontyMrs · April 2011

And how did it work out for you? THANKS

schoolsoutbride · April 2011

By 7 months, we were just doing a light swaddle in a quilt my MIL made (ie not too tight). It was a sleep trigger for him, but he didn't need it to stay asleep. By then it was easy to drop the quilt. We tried several times before that and it was a disaster.

OrangeSmoke · April 2011

Harry deswaddled himself really early, like at a month old. Would just yell and scream whenever we tried to swaddle him. So we stopped, no issues.

Alex loved his swaddle. We waited until he started to break out of it and sleeping longer stretches. We would put him down un swaddled, then he would wake up around midnight, and we'll swaddle him then. So when he started doing 10 hour stretches, there was no need to swaddle.

I have to say I was dreading unswaddling Alex, but it wasn't as bad as I thought.

blondek8 · April 2011

We went cold turkey at 5.5 months. They were routinely breaking out of their swaddles so we knew it was time. We gave them a taggy blanket in lieu of their swaddles and they did just fine. There was some minor fussing/crying for 5 minutes the first night and after that they've gone down fine.

vlahop · April 2011

I am worried about this too... the swaddle has been a lifesaver for us!

UsedToBeGoldie · April 2011

with all 3 we waited until about 6mo... then did one arm out each night to see how they were doing... if they did OK with one arm- then we did the other.. and then in a few days were swaddle free.

we stopped swaddling for naps around 4mo... cold turkey - they got used to it easily during the day - night was harder for them and they slept so well with them, we didn't mess with it until 6mo when they started rolling.

manatee21 · April 2011

Ped just recommended that I stop before they start rolling. One baby was easy (he kept busting out of his swaddle anyway) - we have the summer swaddlers, and I put him in it and velcro around his chest, so he has the secure feeling, but with his arms out. The other has been more of a challenge - I;m trying to swaddle at the first set-down of the night and then just wrapping his chest after middle-of-the-night feeds, but he fights sometimes. gl!

mrscarroll · April 2011

We started with one arm really early on. Eventually we made the decision and just went cold turkey. Not nearly as bad as I had envisioned it would be. Just a couple of nights that took a little bit more work to get them down. They learned to like it in a couple of days it will take a couple of days to break the habit

Rangergal9 · April 2011

We stopped swaddling them both cold turkey. Lily took to it no problem, where as Hannah had a harder time and was waking up in the middle of the night still. So we just went back to swaddling her. Then when she had been STTN for about 3 weeks we tried to stop swaddling again and this time she was fine. So for us, STTN was way more important than not swaddling.

allabydreams · April 2011

We went cold turkey at 4 months when the boys started rolling back to belly and our pedi said we needed to stop swaddling them. We feared the worst but they transitioned into sleepsacks with no issues at all.

CER+MEL · April 2011

We started leaving their arms out or very loosely in their Swaddle Me's (one with hands up--she seemed to like sleeping like that) when they started getting close to rolling onto their tummies. After a few nights of that, we switched to sleep sacks and never looked back. Like others have said, they did better than we expected.

smitt2619 · April 2011

We weaned gradually. He slept just one night with one arm out, then 5 nights with both arms out. We also moved him to his crib, which ended up being a harder adjustment for him then de-swaddling. We then removed the swaddle wings and he slept in a sleepsack. We used the Halo ones, which worked really well. The sleepsacks have replaced swaddling as a signal for sleep time.

MrsLnt · April 2011

DS is a strong kid and one night when we checked on him, he had his A&A blanket up by his neck. And that was with the double swaddle. We tried to go cold turkey that night and it was a disaster. He was about 3 months at that time. What we did was swaddle from the waist down and then pin his more fidgety hand down with a receiving blanket tucked behind his back. Eventually we moved to both arms out. With DD, we moved to both arms out for naps, and then just decided to try it at night and it was fine. We swaddled from the waist down from about 3.5 months to about 4.5 months

After DS' 4m shots, he started running a fever, and we left him unswaddled that night and there was no problem. We decided to see what would happen with DD the next night and there was also no issue.

We were going to move to sleep sacks, but we figured it would just be one more thing to have to wean off of, and, by the time it was cold enough to need a blanket again, we'd feel comfortable giving them one because they'd be a year old, or more.

I was so stressed about deswaddling but it was really a painless process.

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