From swaddle to sleeping bag, when?

[milkyjo]

10 week old dd is swaddled at night and sleeps through. When do you stop swaddling? Will it mean she wakes more often as her arms do wake her up? Also when should I start trying for an earlier bedtime. We have been going to bed between 10 and 11pm but she mainly just sleeps on me from about 8pm. We will have our monitor on the landing as it is currently in ds room. I tried to put her in her crib last night at the same time as ds bedtime but she wouldn't have any of it! She sleeps up to 8 hours at night (thank you!), but I wouldn't mind getting up at 3 or 4am for a feed if we could have our evenings back. Is it too early to try for a 7pm bedtime? Thanks for any advice.

When DS was around 10 weeks old we stopped swaddling (he was a big boy and started escaping from the cellular blankets!). We bought a small GroBag style sleping bag and just tried him in it one night. I was convinced it would be a nightmare and he wouldn;t sleep at all....but he did! in fact, when we peeped in on him, we saw he was sleeping like a starfish with his arms all stretched out, and obviously loving it :-)

I think if you try it and she starts waking frequently due to the startle reflex, you'll know she's not ready and you can go back to the swaddle for a couple of weeks.

We started putting DS to bed in his crib in the bedroom with a monitor on from around 8 weeks old. I wouldn't get too hung up on the 7pm thing for the time being...when she seems to be getting tired in the evening, try putting her down then (8pm, 9pm, whenever...it will creep forward as she gets older anyway i reckon). Then you might at least get an hour or two to yourselves. It's worth a try. I found that DS 'sorted' that early part of the night first anyway, and started sleeping v well from 8pm - midnight quite early on, even when he was then waking for 2 night feeds after that.

I think it was the point where I realised I was putting DS down 'for a nap' in the living room moses basket, or in my arms, at 7.30pm, that it might be that he was trying to tell me that was his bedtime!

Good luck!

We swaddled (in a zip-up swaddlepod/woombie) for ages - 6mths? Maybe more - it's a bit of a blur. We'd try and stop but he'd flap his arms and not settle, so we kept delaying. It was quite easy when we finally did it.

We swaddled until DS could roll over at about 6months then went straight to a sleeping bag. He still likes his shawl he was swaddled in for comfort and likes to cuddle this as he goes to sleep. He is now 1yr old.