swaddling an older baby

[lourobert]

My 6 month old is driving ne freaking nuts with sleep. She has always been swaddled but its like she now gets frustrated with it but also needs it iyswim. I would love to wean her off and I'm thinking nows the time seen as she is going through a terrible sleep phase anyway I'm worried she wont nap or sleep without being swaddled and Ive just been proved right as she last 10 mins. She arms are just waving around everywhere waking herself up.

I suppose I just need a success story about a baby being successfully weaned off.....right now it seems like she'll be swaddled til she starts school.

DD (3) was exactly the same and loved being swaddled.

At about that age I wanted to move her to a sleeping bag as it was too much of a fight getting her swaddled every night so continued to swaddle but loosely then looser and looser over a few nights iykwim. Then I bit the bullet and went for a sleeping bag but hen there was arm waving, I popped a blanket on top so her arms were covered and this seemed to help until she got used to it.

She now sleeps in a bed with a duvet but still occasionally asks for her blanket on top so I guess some kids never grow out of it!

DD could never sleep with her arms free, so we swaddled her til she was around 9 months (much to the horror of most people, but it was either that or go actually crazy with sleep deprivation!). After the first 6 weeks or so we only wrapped up her arms, but like your little one, it got to the age where we were a but worried she'd be swaddled forever!

At about 5/6 months, she started breaking out of the swaddle in the night, and at first we tried weaning her off (gradually loosening/just wrapping one arm) but it was pretty much a disaster, so we just kept finding increasingly secure ways to swaddle her, which she would fight as we were wrapping, but as soon as it was done, she would calm and fall contentedly to sleep, until some point in the night when she'd break free and wake herself up crying hysterically until sh was re-swaddled!

I'd love to share some magic method that finally worked on her, but actually what happened was that one night I woke in the early hours to find she'd busted out of the swaddle and was still asleep. At her next nap, I put her down in her grobag with her arms loose, and from then on she slept absolutely fine without it.

I just think she needed it for comfort until such a point as she simply didn't need it anymore, and weaned herself off. So really don't worry about not being able to ever stop. I guess like most things, some babies are just a bit later with some things.

She's 2.5 now, and a brilliant sleeper (most of the time).

We tried deswaddling DS at around that age, I broke at about 4am he just couldn't handle it.

I worked out when he was a bit older that he could settle without swaddling in the early evening but not in the middle of the night.

So we would start him with a gro bag (light one) and then when he woke in the night at his usual time (creature of habit) we would then swaddled him with a cotton sheet. Over time the point he woke and needed re swaddling moved later and later til it wasn't needed.

I'd like to think it gave him the chance to learn how to sleep without it.

I was so worried we would be swaddling him for years and in my less rational moments imagined swaddling a teenager but he learnt over time and now at four he sleeps diagonally across his bed legs and arms sprawled everywhere.

Hope this helps

Only my dd1 needed swaddling (I've 2 younger dcs)

Firstly : we don't have to swaddle our almost-a-teen so that's good news!

Secondly : for a long time, I couldn't do it, it had to be dh who was brutal but she loved it!

Thirdly : she was about 9 months when he had a training course and had to be away for 2 nights. My ineffectual light swaddling was fine and by the time he got home she'd slept most of a night with none!

She was 7 months (I just checked her "my first year" book) when she slept without it and now I'm going crazy on school morningsto get her up by 7.15 to get the bus!!