Aug 2, 2009

Tips-n-Tricks: Swaddling

When Jane was born, the first thing the nurses did was swaddle her up tight and hand her to me. For two days in the hospital, Dan and I tried to figure out this swaddling thing... never getting it as secure and tidy as the nurses could do it.

Thankfully, we had registered for a SwaddleMe blanket. This is a blessing! A lot of people say "my baby doesn't like to be swaddled"... which may be the case. However, I think mostly, people are swaddling at the wrong time. Jane hates having her arms swaddled but if we leave her arms out, she wakes herself up because her arms are constantly moving! What works for me is to wait until she's in that drowsy state, just before she falls asleep. If I swaddle her then and then put her back on the boob for a minute or give her a sucky, she immediately falls asleep and stays asleep much longer than when I wasn't swaddling her.

The SwaddleMe blanket takes the guess work out... I find it safer too because it's secured around baby with velcro so there's little chance, unlike with a blanket, that Jane will get it lose and it will somehow get up around her face. We've got three now as they work great, during the day, to quickly swaddle Jane if she gets fussy. ;)

Jen :)

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3 comments:

Ange said...

Totally agree! I love the swaddle me blankets. I'm also so paranoid about Chloe having anything blocking her airway and this stays nice and snug around her.

MommyBrain said...

Yah for swaddling and Yah for my husband being persistent and convincing me that swaddling was good for our baby girl. It seemed like torture to me, but in reality, it was exactly what she needed to be calm and sleep well :)

Taylored4Baby said...

I totally agree too! This was the first swaddle that I had, but I make my own now. I find that swaddling is like a signal to Emily to go to sleep. She is 9 months old now, and I still swaddle. Earlier I think it was important because of her reflexes waking her up! Yah for swaddling!! I think it depends on how the parent thinks about swaddling, some think of it as restricting the baby, but I tend to think that the baby is used to constrained environments before birth, so it's a comfort to them when they are already facing so many changes in this big scary world.