How do you swaddle properly?!?!

[mumchez]

My dd2 is 9 weeks and a bugger to get to sleep.. She usually gets overtired, up ages, kills my back, wakes up dd1 etc. etc. .... I know a lot of people try swaddling and this is one method i so far haven't tried (tried the feed u to sleep, bounce on one knee etc. methods!!)... How do you properly swaddle the baby?? Is it arms in or leave arms out??? Sleep on back or on side?? I'm confused, any advice pleasE????

How I used to swaddle mine was as follows - but I did it from day one, but this is the method.

Take a square (or rectangular) sheet or cot blanket. Fold into a triangle. Lie the blanket/sheet with the pointed end nearest to you. Place baby at top end and fold each side across and under baby's shoulders fairly firmly. If blanket is small enough tuck the pointed end of the triangle into the main bit.

Basically upside down triangle, baby's neck on level with the large straight bit. Fold and tuck inwards from there. Sorry I am crap at visual instructions!

I did this with both of mine until about 5 months - it worked for me and them! Maybe arms free from about 3.5/4 months.

Oh and sleep on back! And after they have been fed.

A midwife also wrapped dd in an extra blanket, shawl style. But not all babies like their arms 'trapped'. You may have to experiment.

how to swaddle pictures come from Baby Bliss by Dr Harvey Karp. Using this method I swaddled my dd till about 8 months. The key is making sure their elbows are straight at their sides. You can't swaddle too tightly so don't worry about that.

the document is in German. the diagrams are on page3 of 4.

i also found this document very helpful.

Thanks for the advice everyone..dd2 is 9 weeks and a bad sleeper sop hope it helps!! Did anyone else find this helpful for babies that didn't sleep??

kiskidee- that german article looks quite intersting, shame my german isn't too up 2 scratch!!! the diagrams are useful though... thanks

If you find it basically helps but she comes untucked you might want to get a proper swaddling blanket as they come undone less - we had a 'miracle blanket' which was great (and she looked like Baby Jesus in it).

kathy- did you swaddle from day 1?? feel i will havee a tough time with dd2 as she is 9 weeks and stuck in bad habits

just like mercys description

i swaddled my LO but from 7 weeks - wish i had done it sooner but he loved it! Takes maybe a day or so for them to get used to it and then you should be fine ... i actually swaddled my DS last night for the first time in months as he was feeling poorly and was not settling - worked a treat!

is swaddling something to persever with?? as in if they dont like it straight away??

Mumchez, we didn't do it regularly to start with. I think the first time was sometime in the first fortnight when dh finally managed to get her off to sleep after hours of trying, by wrapping her up tightly in his jumper! We tried it from time to time after that and started doing it regularly with our miracle blanket from about 4 weeks, then she slept through from 7. (Lucky us.) It only took a few times before she started to like it - smiled when we wrapped her up etc.
To be honest in the beginning we liked it because I used to feed her to sleep but she would sometimes wake up as I put her back into the Moses basket, and always wake up if I didn't warm the Moses basket first with a hot water bottle. The advantage of swaddling from our point of view was that it made her much easier to move around (because she was a tightly wrapped bundle instead of a baby with arms and legs sticking out!) and I didn't have to pre-warm the basket - I just breastfed her in her swaddling and put her straight down as she was.
Then I think because she'd made such a strong association between sleep and swaddling, it went without a hitch when I stopped feeding her to sleep and put her down awake.
So it definitely helped us, but I know not everyone has the same experience -worth perserving with for a week or so, though, I would have thought.

Well good news, i have just put dd2 down to sleep, swaddled (she looks like a little bug- so cute!) with a dummy (anything for peace and quiet!) and apart from the couple of times she tried waving her arms and i had to settle her, she is fast asleep.. has been last 20 minutes of so...

i really hope this one will work as she is a terrible sleeper normally..

kathy- we have same problem with the moses basket at the mo, wake her as soon as i put her down, fingers crossed!!!

Will keep mine crossed too, Mumchez.

We're about to have number 2 (any time now) - hoping it works as well with that one!

best of luck kathy- dd1 is quite fond of dd2 now, takes a little getting used to but they get there in the end

Thanks Mumchez.
Just a thought - you could make her look even more like a bug by putting one of those pairs of antennae (weren't they called deeley boppers?) on her head.

haha, don't tempt me.. she would look quite cute with some reindeer antlers on!!! probably first time ive been able to crack a smile in a while