It’s been a little rocky for a few days, but Anna is doing much better now. The first night she only got about 6 hours total sleep in about 3 spurts, poor thing. But last night she only woke up crying once, and then she slept through the rest of the night until 8:45 this morning! And she’s taken some pretty good naps, too.

So she’s at the point where she’ll sleep unswaddled; now we just need to get her to go to sleep unswaddled. With the swaddle, we could just rock her for a few minutes, put her in the crib sleepy but awake, and she would fall asleep on her own. But for right now, she has to be totally zonked out when we transfer her to the crib. We had such a good thing going, and I hope to get it back soon. She has fallen asleep unswaddled on her own twice, so I know she’s capable of it.

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Well, I think the swaddling days are finally coming to a close. Early this morning Anna flipped from her back to her tummy (with one arm in and one arm out). I’m pretty sure it’s not safe for her to be on her tummy with her arms bound up, so it’s time to drop the swaddle.

I tried for an hour and a half to get her down for a nap this morning. Poor girl—she was so tired, but she just couldn’t sleep with her arms flailing around. At one point she was mostly asleep, and I was holding her hands to keep them still, but then she had a big startle and sent her arms flying, and then she started to cry the saddest cry, like, “Please let me go to sleep!” I finally just got her up. A little bit later, I tried to feed her, and of course she fell asleep almost instantly. I put her down on her stomach, held her still for just a minute to let her get back to sleep, and she slept for 45 minutes. It’s a start, but she’s gonna have to learn to sleep a lot longer than that!

We may be in for a rough few days, but I know she’ll eventually adapt.

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Any suggestions, anyone? Cold turkey? Gradual weaning?

(Of course, I could step it up a notch—the Halo Sleepsack Swaddle. Surely she couldn’t bust out of that…)

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I bet the engineers at the SwaddleMe Blanket Design and Production Headquarters didn’t count on this:

Ok, so maybe the legs are out, but those arms aren’t going anywhere!

You know, I see the potential to make some money here. I need to offer Anna to test swaddling products. They obviously didn’t pick the right babies.

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When Anna woke up from her nap last evening, this is what I found:

That’s right, folks—still swaddled!

I was intrigued by the miracle blanket Megan told me about in her comment on my “Houdini” post. You really should go there and watch the short video clip of them wrapping up a baby—it’s impressive and a little funny.

I realized I don’t need a $30 blanket to do that; I just need a scrap of fabric!

And that’s what I did. I laid Anna on a long skinny strip of cotton knit fabric, then for each side, brought the fabric up between her arm and her side, wrapped it over her arm and tucked it under her back. Then baby, with arms now immobilized, went into the swaddling blanket.

Last night went pretty well too. We only had to get up once with her other than her feeding; she was fussing a little and needed David to help her get back to sleep. I think we all had a much better night’s sleep than we had been getting recently!

I hope this works for a while. Maybe I’ve at least bought us 3 or 4 more days until she figures a way out of this one too.

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… does not apply in this situation, sweetie! Now get that arm back in there and go to sleep!

(What, did you think this was going to be a commentary on Shane’s recent run-in with the Tulsa P.D.?)

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As I mentioned before, Anna has to be swaddled to sleep. The problem is she can eventually wriggle her arms out, and then we have to go in there and re-wrap her for her to fall back asleep soundly. I’ve been pressing David for several weeks to get a swaddling blanket. I finally insisted enough, and he sweetly stopped by Babies ‘R’ Us after work yesterday and picked one up.

It basically goes something like this:

• Insert bottom half of baby into sack.
• Wrap flaps around top half of baby and secure in place with velcro.

The reviews were promising—story after story of people whose babies would wriggle out of even the tightest swaddle and wake themselves several times during the night, just like Anna, but after they started using this blanket, they started sleeping through the night! Aha! This is the answer!

Last night was David’s night to check on her. At 3:30 he had gotten up twice with her. She had come out of the blanket. I mean completely out—legs and all.

How the heck?!?

I just hope this skill comes in handy someday. Maybe she’ll make us a lot of money in the circus.

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Anna is still swaddled when she sleeps. I don’t know if she likes it or not, but she needs it. If she’s not, her arms flail about wildly and she wakes herself (and us) up.

It’s funny when she starts to wake up and is a little agitated at finding herself bound up like that. She looks like a little mermaid out of water, flopping around in her crib. (Don’t worry, we free her. After we laugh.)

And then there’s the big stretch when she wakes up. Boy, she gives it all she’s got. I can’t seem to get a picture that does it justice, though.

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