How do I wean my DS off swaddling?

[MrsPatMustard]

DS is 4 months old. He's pretty much outgrown his swaddle blanket and the health visitor said he should need it after 4 months. Tried removing it last night as room was hot and didn't want him to over-heat. DISASTER! Was awake constantly through the night. Have had 3 hours sleep and am utterly exhausted.... What should I do?

Try a baby sleeping bag, you can get adjustable ones so you can make it snug and let out poppers as he grows

We have tried grobags already - the problem is he has that jerky arm reflex thing that wakes him up, so the swaddle was ideal as it kept his body still. In grobags or blankets he thrashes around like a wrestler....

Is it a problem to keep them swaddled after 4 months? My health visitor suggested I needed to get him off the swaddle but I don't really understand why....

DS is 9 months and we've only just stopped swaddling him as he was the same. We only did his arms though for the last few months. I think the risk is when they start being able to roll, as they can end up face down and stuck, but DS was never shy about letting us know if that happened We just went with it, he was a bad enough sleeper as it was so it was a case of 'whatever works' for us.

I think you just have to take it off And deal with a bad couple of nights. They can't calm their jerkiness thing until they're de swaddled. It is gutting to lose the swaddle but fwiw my health visitor said they should be out of them early. The earlier you do it the easier the will find it to self soothe back to sleep. If the nightmare persists I would proceed to pick up put down, the baby whisperer technique. It takes patience by it works. Good luck!

My DS is a thumb sucker. As he grew bigger we found we could swaddle him one arm in/one arm out so he would feel secure, but was able to self soothe when he could.
I think he was a bit younger than your DS when we were out of them, but perhaps a gradual retreat might help?

We only stopped swaddling at 9mo. My DD was like your DS, always waking herself up with her arms! Even the thought of not swaddling her terrified me because I'd gotten used to a full nights sleep and knew we would probably suffer nights of endless crying and multiple wake ups. But we didn't! She did take longer to drift off and woke up earlier but by the second night she was sleeping fine

You could try gradually stopping, so swaddling only one arm and keeping the other one free. Then after a few nights swaddle with both arms free and then gradually just stop? Or just bite the bullet and deal with the few nights of broken sleep? It won't take long and I'm sure he will get used to it

We've just had this with our 4 month old! He went through a bit of a sleep regression (hopefully now finished!!!!) so I decided to tackle both things at once! It took a lot of nights only swaddling one arm and sometimes holding down the other one and sometimes giving up completely. Once we had that down I put him in a grobag and folded a muslin diagonally to tuck an arm in. Only needed a couple of nights of this and he was ok! Hope that helps :)

My 4 month old still likes being swaddled. We use a big muslin. He can't roll from back to front yet so I can't see a problem.

My DS is 9 months old and we stopped at 8 months when we had a couple of hot nights. I tried sleeping bags but didn't work. I used a extra large muslin in the end as he was refusing to settle in the sleeping bag, but even that didn't work as clearly wasn't the same feeling as his blanket. You may not want to hear this but it took about a week of him having both arms out to get used to it. I would try an extra large muslin as see if he doesn't mind. Not sure why HV thinks he shouldn't be swaddled after 4 months?? If he likes it carry on with muslin unless you want to stop before summer?

Once my DD was too big for her swaddle, I moved onto a woombie. This stopped her from escaping, but also gave enough room to move her arms a bit and was a good transition. We then moved onto a love to dream swaddle which gave even more movement. I then took one arm out of this for a few nights, then took out both arms. She actually slept better than ever! I must say though, she wasn't ready to be de-swaddled at 4 months. We got her out of it at 7 months.
Now we have the issue of her crawling about her cot lol!!!'

MrsPat - I'm going to save your sanity. Get a Swaddle Up 50/50. I discovered these when my DS was the same age as your baby and the increased sleep I started to get was INTOXICATING.
Jojo stock them, or Cheeky Rascals' website.

Oops sorry Lindsay I didn't read your comment properly - you'd already recommended the Swaddle Up. They are superb.

Ha ha!! They are fab!!! In fact I might bring it back out (sans sleeves!) as a sleeping bag if we get some decent weather up in Scotland!!
Nice and light with lots of room!!

We finally had to get DS1 out of swaddling at about 8 months, when he'd kick it off when he's asleep and wake up cold.

It had to be a sleeping bag. And DH ended up having to cuddle him to sleep until he was really well and truly asleep.

And, through the summer, we swaddled him in a cot sheet, rather than a blanket.

Apologies for the delay in responding to everyone - DS has been keeping me on my toes.

Thanks all for this - some really useful comments. Do want to keep his arms under control for a little longer because DS also has ezcema on his face and keeps scratching. Plus he's teething and, frankly, I can only cope with one issue at a time! (Wimp!) Will definitely look into Swaddle Up. Thanks :-)

I transitioned my dd using a zipadeezip at 4.5 months. She could not sleep at all without her woombie. It literally took one nap in the zipadeezip and she slept the same as in her swaddle. You can order them on mybabysolutions.co.uk. I just started putting my daughter into normal sleeping bags a few months ago (she's 14m now) and there was no transition, I guess the need had just gone x