Breaking swaddle addiction

Brit's Luna154 · June 2012

Has anyone successfully dealt with a serious swaddle problem? DD will only sleep swaddled and I'm running out of swaddling devices that will contain her. I just ordered the Woombie Mega Baby, but when that gets too small we are going to have to break the habit. I'm scared for my sleep! If you have done this already, how did you do it? The Woombie zips up, so there is no "leave one arm out" option.

jodywelsh · June 2012

We went cold turkey at 3 months because DS was breaking out. It was rough for the first two nights but he has been free since then and loves it.

YallAintRight · June 2012

I agree with PP about going cold turkey. Swaddling DS became a 2 person job and it was still a circus act. He would bust out every.single.freaking.time. When he started rolling over I basically knew we were done. We just flat out stopped it one night. I would rock him before sleep and sort of hold him in a somewhat swaddled position (I called it the SwaddleRock) to get him to calm down, then I'd put him down to sleep. He still flails about and will essentially do a full turn in his crib by morning, but he sleeps from 7:00 pm to 6:30 am. He definitely wakes himself up periodically through the night but I don't think it's from his startle reflex, but moreso just cycling through his sleep phases. The longest he's ever fussed when waking himself up is 5-10 minutes so it's been a good transition to teaching him to soothe himself to sleep. He just sleeps in a sleep sack now.

The cliff notes version of my novel above is basically that it will have to happen eventually and if you have a January baby he/she probably lost the serious startle reflex they have when they are super little. No matter what, it will probably only be a few days of some disturbance and after that you'll be good to go.

sanbry · June 2012

I need to break my daughter of it too. The Velcro on the swaddles wears out and I just can't keep buying them. But sometimes it's the only way I can get her to sleep a decent stretch anymore. We tried for a week and she would wake up and play and make noise for close to an hour and then start crying, so I'd be up that whole time. So I swaddled again and now she's going through a sleep regression anyway so I probably should just break it now but I'm hesitant:/

Mrs.MauiBride24 · June 2012

I might be enabling you, but there is an arms only swaddle:

https://annaevellc.mybigcommerce.com/index.php

cara117 · June 2012

We also went through this. DS hated the swaddle when we put him in it, until around 4 months or so, but if we didn't, he would flail his arms all around and wake up a bunch during the night. We literally were getting zero sleep. I debated buying that magic sleep suit, and we bought a bigger swaddle, but like PP said, the velcro would wear out and the thing would just get too stretched out. Then one night we just left it off of him and bounced him to sleep and put him in his crib. I think he only woke up a few times, and we just helped him back to sleep. He's been without it ever since. I'd suggest trying a night or two without it, just maybe a sleeper or sleep sack. I was totally skeptical but apparently he was done with it!

Mrsswaddle · June 2012

Yeah, my AW got off swaddling when he was too big. We were using the Halo sleepsack that serves as a swaddle blanket and a sleepsack. So, when it was time to wean him off swaddling we stop the swaddling and starting using the sleepsack function of the swaddle blanket. Decided on this swaddle after reading some reviews from other moms at https://www.bestswaddleblanket.com/2012/02/13/halo-sleepsack-review/

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