The Great Unswaddling
I am a true believer in swaddling. Prior to Dylan being born we used to read “Happiest Baby on the Block” before we fell asleep. Yes, it was out nightly ritual…Josh has a very soothing voice.
When Dylan was born we quickly understood why swaddling was so important. The girl just wouldn’t sleep otherwise. Right off the bat Dylan really didn’t like having her hands tucked in, but when we swaddled arms out she startled herself awake. So we kept trying.
power to the swaddle
We probably tried and own every swaddle known to man at this point. We have pods, Velcro, snaps, zippers, convertible wrap sacks, swaddles that you can unwrap the legs, swaddles where you can have natural baby movement. Literally everything.
Eventually we settled on the SwaddleMe Original Swaddle.
They were great, Dylan loved them. She slept, we slept it was glorious. Then she started breaking out of them.
And like the new unknowing parents that we are….instead of just letting it happen we immediately panicked because NO ONE wants to lose those 12 hour stretches at night and switched to the Woombie. The Woombie was grand…she couldn’t bust out and she continued sleeping just fine. Then she started rolling over, and something I wished so hard to watch her do meant I had to do one of the hardest things ever and transition her from the swaddle.
Hey look what I can do.
We tried three times. It took us three goes before we sort of got it right. The first two were just disasters, partly because we just didn’t have the backbone to listen to her scream and be unhappy while whacking herself in the face and partly because she just wasn’t ready. The thing is she was only rolling over when she wasn’t tired and didn’t want to be in the crib. And when we tried to keep her arms out she just kept clawing her face.
We bought more swaddles to help with the transition. One was just a waste (the SwaddleMe WrapSack) because she hated it, and the second the Zippidee didn’t arrive in time for us to start the process.
Finally, we just pulled her arms out of the convertible Woombie and stuck to it.
Day One: Dylan missed her first nap entirely. Just wouldn’t sleep. Her second nap was basically the 30-minute drive to the mall. Her third nap was also in the car, and then again when in her crib we got zilch. I cried, she cried, I tried to block out her cries via exercise and a shower…it was miserable. By nighttime she was so tired that she just passed out. We had a few wake ups, but we just had to slip the paci back into her mouth and she was good.
Day Two: Again, that first nap was non-existent. Instead she slept for 20 minutes on me. Then she had a birthday party where she slept for 20 minutes on Josh. That afternoon she took about a 45-minute nap in her crib and again at night with a few wake ups slept through the night. Josh started sitting with her in the room until she fell asleep to try to keep her calm.
Day Three: She gave us a 15-minute nap in the morning, and then two little 30-minute naps. She is consistently letting us put her down around 7ish these days so with a few wake ups while we were still awake she was out for the night.
Day Four: Whoopie! Dylan slept for 50 minutes during her first nap. Then we had a little 30-minute nap and we were off to the doctor. She slept in the car on the way home (about 30 minutes) and then passed out for just under 50 minutes. Now that is probably due to her shots but she still didn’t fight it.
I’m hopeful that by the time she’s back at daycare on Wednesday that we will be in a good spot. Now if we could just get her naps to be a bit longer we’d be ok.
