Going cold turkey at four months (swaddle related)

[dickiedoodah]

Hello all, my question is to anyone who stopped swaddling their baby at around four months. My DS is swaddled every night and put in his sleepyhead. He takes a dummy well and up until he turned four months his sleep was sort of OK. Everything has changed so much so I'm wondering if I should just get rid of the swaddle now and put him into a sleeping bag. He seems frustrated by his lack of movement at around 4am every morning which is getting old!! I feel that since the four month sleep regression is babies basically reprogramming their sleep patterns perhaps I could out smart it and change things up?!! I'm also very tired and desperate to sleep for longer than two hours at night!! Has anyone not swaddled their baby? Did they adjust or did it just make things worse?

Why cold turkey? Mine were around 4 months when the swaddle started to become less frequently used, but the change was gradual and was baby led.

I assume from your post that baby does actually like being swaddled still? If not, then just stop using it because that's the baby led thing to do.

Usually though it is a gradual change. If baby doesn't seem to like it at 4am, could you make it looser at that time? Or take her out of it then?

We would have nights in the sleeping bag inter-dispersed with fractious nights when I'd swaddle with a thin sheet over the top of the sleeping bag. Sometimes a loser swaddle, when needed a tighter secure-feeling swaddle.

Then we moved to a tightly tucked in thin sheet over the top of the sleeping bag, as an interim.

Being an old school mum who now has a baby again (first had a newborn 20 years ago) I think this 4 month sleep regression idea is nonsense and that babies are actually hungrier and ready for real grub at that stage. Shoot me down. The health visitors are going to hate me when bubba gets to that stage lol. With regards to swaddling I would just do it. Put him in a sleeping bag tonight. He'll be fine.

When my children were babies there was no mention of this 4 month sleep regression. When did it become the 'in thing'? My grandchildren didn't have it either.

After 5 kids aged between 23 and 7 I have never heard of sleep regression. In terms of hunger and needing solids I think every child is different. When I had my first two 3 and 4 mths respectively was the recommended age to introduce solids. With the others it was six months. I don't remember it having a huge correlation to their sleeping. If the baby likes being swaddled and or waken himself with jerky movements why would you stop?

Well I've heard of the sleep regression in my house. I switched to the bigger sleephead at this stage for similar reasons op, to get it over and done with...

I was a real believer in the 4month sleep regression as DD1 was a gr8 sleeper (lucky me!) until we hit 4.5 months and it went rapidly downhill for about 6 weeks! Only sorted (or so I thought at the time?) by CC! Which was horrific 😕
Hope it is a load of nonsense and I don't experience the same with DS2 aged 12 weeks currently! He's not a gr8 sleeper already so fearing the worst!
Regarding the swaddling I'm in the same boat so interested to see the replies...currently using woombie, which he loved but seems to be getting a bit frustrated by it after night feed now. Debating whether to just put him in a sleeping bag tonight...however during the day his startle reflex is still strong and wakes him up (in car seat/pram etc) so thinking it might be a bad idea 🙈
Do you have to go cold turkey? A few ladies seem to have success with the Love to Dream Swaddle and I have a zippedee zip that was gr8 with DD1 (too big for baby at min tho unfortunately) x

I like the suggestion of the tightly tucked sheet over the sleeping bag Fate! Great idea, would give him some freedom but still a sense of being secure. I guess I said cold turkey because I want to avoid using all the products designed to help you transition. I have a woombie ready to go but it's really just the same thing as the swaddle.

You could be right Desmondo about the hunger thing. I will start introducing some baby rice probably around 5 months. I did this with my second and the sleep situation improved. With my first I followed current day advice and waited until six months which was too late because she refused the spoon.

I swaddled him last night and also made sure I fed him as much as possible during the day and he had longer feeds during the night. Overall he had a better night and slept to 5.30 instead of 4am!

I know exactly what you mean...all these sleeping aids are to wean from at some point aren't they?! I currently have a woombie, sleepyhead and a dummy..plus feed him to sleep 🙈😂 Going to be fun for me at some point isn't it lol! X