Rolling and sleep bag advice please

[DaisyEM]

My 12 week old rolled yesterday for the first time, from tummy to back, I thought as soon as they are rolling/showing signs of rolling you needed to stop swaddling them (we’re using the love to dream arms up swaddle bags), so last night I put him in a normal sleep bag with arms out, but the night was an a spy train wreck. He still has his startle reflex and was throwing his arms around all night. Didn’t sleep more than 45 mins at a time, was extremely restless/difficult to put back down and by 4am I gave up and just let him sleep on me.

I’ve spoken to a maternity nurse and she’s said as he’s not rolling back to front that it’s still ok to use an arms up sleep bag. This makes sense as obviously we are putting him down on his back. What does everyone think?! The idea of using an arms up sleep bag makes me nervous when everything says to avoid them once they are rolling, but I also won’t be able to function if the nights continue like last night as I honestly managed about 2-3hrs sleep at best and have a 4 year old at home too. To me logic says if they’re not trying to roll from back to front it most likely is ok to continue to use the arms up sleep bag for now?

Thanks in advance!

You could try the transition ones where you can take off one arm at a time and see if he adjusts better. The transition ones are also snugger around the body than most normal sleeping bags which some babies might prefer. I think it’s too risky to keep using the arms up swaddle if showing any signs of rolling at all.

@wishIwasonholiday10 I’ve got a Tommee Tippee transition one, but actually it’s much less snug than the love to dream ones on the body. I didn’t expect him to roll this early so I’m not prepared!

The Love to Dream transition ones are quite snug. We continued to use them as normal sleeping bags after the arms came off so wasn’t a waste of money.

@wishIwasonholiday10 is it safe for them to have one arm in and one arm out though? Once they’ve started rolling. I’m really unsure on what the best thing to do is 😖 as from last night it very much feels like he’s not ready to have his arms out, but everything I’ve seen online says no swaddles even at signs of rolling…however he’s not showing signs of rolling from back to belly, he just rolled belly to back yesterday

I personally wouldn't use an arms up swaddle with any signs of rolling. Baby will get used to the sleeping bag like they get used to anything, you might have a bad week of sleep but it will settle.

You'll be up all night worrying anyway if you leave him in the swaddle 😜

I also had an early roller. Really fucked up his sleep. You have my sympathy, it's incredibly hard.

Not very safe I guess. I would certainly be aiming to make the transition a quick one.

Has he just rolled once? My DS did this and didn’t roll again for a couple of months! If it was just once I may risk the swaddle bag.

I would just persevere with the sleeping bag, no swaddle now rolling is here- not worth the risk, and also you just never know when the first roll will be back to front. It could be in 3 weeks, it could be at 3am tonight when you’re fast asleep.

It’s pointless continuing with the swaddle anyway because he IS rolling, he can’t be swaddled forever so it’s time to transition now. Stick with it x

Thanks everyone! Every time I put him on his tummy today he very swiftly rolled onto his back. You’ve all made good points, especially about the fact that if I don’t transition him now I’ll have to do it in a few weeks anyway!

This has taken me by surprise as he’s only 12 weeks, and wasn’t keen on doing tummy time so we hadn’t done much on the floor. My first never rolled, so I didn’t have previous knowledge of how to handle this/hadn’t read up on it in advance as expected to have another month or so before rolling started!

I remember the intense jealousy I felt of a mum at a mum and baby group who was a bit worried that her 5 month old was still not rolling and she was such a chill baby and sleeping 12 hours a night....meanwhile mine had started rolling around 10-12 weeks and it was like a party in his crib all night long. He'd wake every 2 hours, try to roll or slap his face, get stuck and start screaming. Mine also started properly crawling at just under 7 months(!!) and so then I was jealous of all the mums still enjoying a cup of coffee with their non-crawling babies at like 9 months.

Obviously my above thoughts are terribly unreasonable and I never voiced them but you can't help compare, especially when sleep is affected.