Swaddlng for bed - when to stop?

[daisyhun]

Our 10 week old dd has been swaddled for bed since she was 4 weeks old - it has been a godsend and she goes down to bed beautifully and sleeps for 11 to 12 hours solid through the night.

But now she is more active at 10 weeks I feel bad for swaddling her as she seems so restrained - she seems happy enough when I do it and is all smiles when it's bed time and I swaddle her, but I wondered if anyone knew whether there is an age past which you shouldn't swaddle them?

Should I just wait until she starts to object? I put her down last night without swaddling her but I checked on her 30 mins later and she was still awake, just lying in the dark flailing her arms around (but smiling like it was play time) so I swaddled her and she was out like a light.

Any thoughts?

I kept swaddling ds until he was about 5 months and only stopped because of the heat wave last summer. They don't lose the startle reflex until they are about 8 months old, so it stops them waking themselves up...

I only stopped with the dts at 5 months due to being on holiday in spain and it was too hot. It really doesn't do any harm to keep swaddling and some babies do love it.

Did you swaddle with arms down by his sides? My HV told me to try to swaddle with her hands on her chest but she gets out of that really easily - I use a swaddling blanket specially designed to keep her arms by her sides but it just looks so cruel!! I suppose she would cry if she didn't like it though.

Hi - I swaddled DD1 until she was 5 mnths with arms at the side, then moved to arms outside but swaddle tight around the body. they love the feeling of closeness/tightness. If shes happy = sleeping = sleeping mummy = result!!

I did, yes, that was how they liked it. I used to have to twist the bottom of the blanket around at the bottom for dt2 so his legs were snug too. I wondered with mine if it was because they were twins they liked the tightness.