August 4, 2008
It may be time to kick the swaddling habit.
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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Your choice. Just swaddle her and let her come out of it. By this age, she probably wants her hands to chew and suck on, and, as evidenced by your previous post, she may want to play with her toes before she goes to sleep. I wouldn’t try to swaddle her any more. That’s really more of a newborn thing. She’s just a regular infant now. (don’t let that make you cry!!!) haha!
I should have specified—the problem isn’t that she won’t stay swaddled; the problem is that she WON’T SLEEP unswaddled.
We can eventually rock her to sleep, but as soon as we lay her down in the crib, it’s arms and legs everywhere like an octupus and she wakes herself up and cries. And when she comes unswaddled in the night, she won’t just fuss a little and go back to sleep—we’ve tried that. It ALWAYS turns into full-fledged crying which requires us to get her out of the crib and rock her back to sleep… and so on. I think we’ve gotten ourselves into a trap. Aargh!
Just this week we’ve started putting Piper down on her belly. We’ve been letting her soothe herself to sleep for about 6 weeks or so in her swaddle but this week when she gets sleepy we lay her on her belly in bed. She usually cries less than 2 minutes or so. She can move her head to both sides really well. Both of our boys slept on their bellies after they could move their heads side to side. Piper is doing really well with it.
i found a website called http://www.babywisemom.blogspot.com/
they have some informative ideas sometimes.
we’re letting jaybird have one or two arms undone. trying to start getting him to where we can just lay him down with now blanket swaddle.
i do think i remember some moms talking about this on that blog.
I’m no help to you here. Zachary sleeps in bed with me – he cries, I roll over and give him a hug and a kiss, he goes back to sleep. We’re both happy. :)
Sounds like your little girl and mine have tons in commom. One of the nurses at our pediatrician’s office said that she had a “back problem.” I was like, huh? She replied, “you lay her on her back and she just freaks out.” That pretty much summed it up.
Bottom line for Savannah…it took patience and our sticking to what we knew we wanted, her to sleep in her own bed. What we did is not a quick fix, but I’ve found that almost nothing ever is. Here was the pattern: lay her down, crying began, wait five minutes (give or take) and go in and soothe until crying stopped, leave, crying began anew, go back about 10 mins later, soothe, repeat until the little darling falls asleep.
Nothing fancy here, but the results were undeniable. The first night was tough. A couple of hours before sleep. The next night was slightly better. Once Savvy realized that was going to be the way it is, she accepted it. Within a week, I was putting her to bed, kissing her goodnight, turning out the light, and leaving the room. All with no crying at all…seriously.
Sorry to leave the second post, but I forgot a very important part of the soothing process, and it happens to be the toughest part: do not pick her up. A gentle pat or rub on the outer thigh did the trick with Savvy. The picking up and laying down is actually a wild ride for a little one. If someone picked me up 10 to 15 feet (adjusted to scale) off the ground and then expected me to go to sleep, I would be frustrated, too.
I think she is trying to tell you something. I would recommend that you stop trying to swaddle her and move on to a sleep sack. Please, please do not try to put her on her tummy even if she is strong enough to move her head from side to side. Many babies will sleep momentarily face down. Most will eventually move their heads when their little brains tell them they need more oxygen. Some don’t. Mine didn’t. Please don’t take that chance.
Time, patience and perseverance.
Good luck and continue to enjoy the here and now!
Wow, thanks for all the input!
Jenny–I wondered from the beginning if Anna would sleep better on her tummy, but I’m just not comfortable with it until she’s the one deciding that by rolling over.
Anna–any luck with little JJ yet? I’ve tried the one-arm-out thing, and have never yet gotten her to sleep for more than a few minutes.
Diana–I’ve often wondered if we ALL would have gotten more sleep co-sleeping! It sounds so nice. There are pros and cons I guess. But we’d probably need a king-size bed, to keep her safely away from covers and pillows.
Rodney–How old was Savvy when you did this? Many times I’ve decided that I’m just going to let her cry some. But everything I’ve read says not to do that until they’re six months old. I think a lot of people do it before six months. And I think they have babies that sleep!
Bill–I’m so sorry about your little baby. Thanks for sharing, and for the reminder to be cautious.
I let my first “cry it out” at 9 months when I realized she had to nurse to get to sleep. It was, hands down, the best thing I ever did. I don’t know about doing that with a 4 month old, though.
However, it’s never too early to start practicing. I’d stay in the room and pat her, In fact, that’s how I did it at 9 months even. I didn’t leave the room. It’s all about habits they get in to. So it’s never too early to start developing good habits. And trust me. Good sleep is one of the habits you absolutely want your baby to have!
We did the cry it out method with Andrew and Parker at 4 months and they did great with it. The first nights were tough but then they went to sleep super fast. We would’ve probably done the same with Piper but thought we’d just try to put her down sleepy to see if she’s soothe herself and she did, literally within 5 minutes. I don’t know if it’s just her or that she was younger and didn’t rely on us yet to put her to sleep every time.
he’s in his crib right now with no blanky at all.
who know’s? we did the cold turkey route i guess. i do like to wrap his bottom half at night, leaving his arms free. actually, he slept with me several nights last week and he was unswaddled.
we got our pineapple and occ from walmart!
Savvy was WAY under six months old when we did this. April and I were losing our minds after about 3 months. Savvy has always been strong and could wrestle her way out of a swaddle by about that time. Losing that security (even though she did it to herself) just caused her to cry. She would wind herself up and not go to sleep for hours (really).
I’m no parenting expert, but I have been where you are. The patterns you begin now will, no doubt, affect the results you get in the future. You have to decide what are priorities and what is not that big of a deal. If sleeping in her own bed is at the top of the list (it was with us), then just stick to your guns and communicate, lovingly, with her that her bed is where she sleeps. She will get the message, know that you are the parent, and love you for it.
Let me know when you get to the toddler who wakes up in the middle of the night to play stage. That was tons of fun, too! :)
Girl, i think it is time to “Kick it up a notch” as you say with the sleepsack swaddle from Halo – or just move her into the Halo sleepsack. She will still feel warm and snuggled – and the beauty of the Halo sleepsack swaddle is the wings come off if she can bust out – we had a strong one when she was tiny and the sleepsack swaddle was the only thing that could hold her! thank goodness for that design! order one tonight! halosleep.com! good luck and good for you having a STRONG one! take care!