Moving from swaddling to grobag...

[pettyprudence]

Hello

I need some hints/tips on how to move ds 4.5months from swaddling to a grobag. At the moment if his arms are free he thinks its party time, waves them in the air, grabs at the grobag, the dummy anything. Then he gets overtired, cries and his arms start shaking. If I swaddle him he shouts for a minute or 2 (or 10) and then goes to sleep. He is now at a point though where he is breaking free of the swaddling in the night and this seems to be disturbing him (yesterday morning he woke me up because he had wriggled sideways in the cot, legs between the bars and swaddling sheet was over his head!).

In the nicest possible way, I have limited patience for any rocking, holding down arms etc.... so really looking for a lazy option with minimal input from me . He self settles beautifully being swaddled and I would at least like to maintain this bit.

I am trying to practice with the grobag for naps before I dare to use them at night. At the moment, he's in a bag but his arms are swaddled down with the swaddling underneath him so he doesn't get too hot and so that its just his own body weight holding the swaddling down (does that make sense?).

TIA for any help

DS1 was a complete swaddle addict. At about 7 months we bought something called a peke moe (google it) - a sort of pillowcase shaped bag with a head-hole. It worked the first night, he was really happy in it. After a few months we moved him from that into a grobag - again, no issues.

DS2, however (4 months) is also addicted to swaddling and so far does not seem to be fooled by the peke moe - I thought it was a complete wonder-product after DS1, but maybe it doesn't work for all babies / some are not ready at 4 months to give up swaddling. Worth a try though if you don't mind buying a new "prop"!

We used the peke moe to get DS to get from swaddling to grobag. I seem to remember that it didn't work the first time, but was fine a couple of weeks later. Perhaps some babies need swaddling longer than others?

I've only just stopped swaddling at almost 8 months after stopping at four and reintroducing at 6 months. I was told there was no need to stop and it helped with sleeping as basically we just weren't getting any hence the reswaddle...
DD used t flip herself over...I was advised to tuck the end of the grow bag..if its long enough under the mattress.
I'd keep swaddling if I were you as I understand now that there is no reason to stop. I thought I had to when she came out of the moses basket.

Try an ergococoon, a cross between a swaddle and a sleeping bag- the only thing DD will sleep in. You could try one arm out first and then the other. We have just got them in all the togs to see her through autumn, winter.

My DD1 was a swaddle addict too until about 6 months, when I just felt we needed to stop as it was summer and she was getting so hot. I worked myself up into such a tizzy about it, my friends still call it 'swaddlegate' :-) I practiced with the grobag at naptimes and out in the pram (so I knew she'd go to sleep with the motion but starting off with her arms free) and then just went cold turkey and put her down in grobag at night. She was absolutely fine and went down with no probs, slept all night! The same thing has worked with DD2 and DD3. Good luck!

I weaned DS off the sneaky way. He was swaddled in a total straitjacket way using two muslin cloths (if you want to know the method, just ask). There was no way he could get his arms out. Then I started swaddling one of this arms in two cloths and one in just one cloth, so he could wiggle it out if he wanted. Then I feed one of his arms. Then the second arm was swaddled using only one cloth, etc. It took ages, but he is now in a sleeping bag. His sleep has gone to hell, however, but I think it's 6 month sleep regression and not the lack of swaddle.

We've just been through this at four months. I did a week of swaddled with one arm out, then a week with two arms out (with swaddle around chest) before moving to grobag. To occupy his hands, I gave DS a little cloth which he held onto - this seemed to stop the arm waving. HTH

Just tried the grobag again as ds actually fed to sleep for a change tonight so thought I would just pop him straight down..... he woke himself up clawing at his face. GRR. Arms are now tethered again but maybe I should try the snuggle cloth idea next time I put him down for a nap? We did manage one arm un-swaddled for a week or so but then he started waking himself again. I think its because when he is drowsy/sleepy he wakes himself up by trying to put his fingers in his mouth but he's not very good at it so it wakes him rather than soothes him. Dummy is redundant as well unless swaddled as he has lots of fun taking it out, twiddling it and putting it back in - not conducive to sleep!

DS also fiddles with mouth/ pulls dummy out - hence the little cloth as I find this occupies his hands. Also, he's now rubbing it against his face when sleepy and I'm hoping that in due course it will help me wean him from his dummy.

Fed to sleep again, put him down, handed him cloth and he thought it was marvellous - started chatting and squealing! Arms are now wrapped back up and I am going to accept that he will need swaddling/tethering/restraining until he is 15 . Going to move my mission now to finding scarves long enough to tie those arms down when he's in a grobag. Plan B is to sew in little leather straps to his mattress

I realise this is an ancient thread, but I just wondered if the OP had managed to get their ds out of the swaddle?? Am going through this atm and having looked at the price of the peke moes, I am loathe to spend more money on another prop if there is another way around this!

I have just had this problem and used something called a Zipadee-Zip in the end, after much research, which seems to be a variation on the pekemoe vein, kind of a starfish shape. My 5 month old went down in it the first night no problems (although she took a little longer to settle than when she was swaddled) and has slept better than she ever did swaddled ever since.

I only have one baby, so I don't know if the bag is a universal miracle worker, but my baby would not sleep unswaddled and we had tried all of the one arm out stuff etc. Yep, it was another expense but she did 7 till 7 last night and has been doing similar all week. I think I would have happily sacrificed a vital organ for this result a few weeks ago.

DS, 5 months, greatly dislikes grobags. I realised I was actually reacting to 'peer pressure' [SIL who is strangely obsessed with whether we use them yet] and after doing some research decided not to worry about it for now.

If you want to continue swaddling, Google for extra large or giant muslins. I ended up buying from bigmuz.com. Large and plain white, just how I wanted em.

Since hospital he always had 2 cellular blankets and I worried a muslin wouldn't be warm enough. But they are much warmer than I thought and those particular ones go around DS then fold back up and over him to make a nice little cocoon. I then put a single cellular blanket around the outside. I leave his legs quite loose and the outer blanket does break open half the time, but he's always covered by the muslin in the morning.

My DS had a woombie, you can buy ones where you remove the arms one by one if you want to.