Baby wants swaddle back but he's too old!

[solbunny]

So up until now my 9 week old baby had become quite a good sleeper - we had a fair few 6 hour stretches at night, and most nights we could rely on at least two solid sleeps of four hours.

This started to change 10 days ago - all of a sudden he was waking every three hours for feeding again, and waking again in between feeds when he'd need to be rocked back to sleep. His daytime naps shortened to 40-45 mins every time.

Then, since two days ago, he suddenly is refusing to be put down in his crib whilst sleeping. As soon as we put him down he would start wriggling and eventually wake up and cry until we picked him up again. This meant me and my husband have had to take it in turns to stay up holding him at night. This applies for his daytime naps too, where he normally sleeps in a pram carrycot removed from the chassis and placed on the floor but now he wants to be held.

I've been trying everything I can think of to try and get him to let us put him down, and I've finally had success by putting him in a halo swaddle sack. We've been using these sacks arms out for the last three weeks with no problems, as he'd started showing signs of trying to roll over (god help us!). But now he definitely seems to want his arms swaddled in. I have also tried putting him down and holding his arms down, which works until beautifully until I let go of his arms and he's literally immediately unsettled again!

I think this is okay in the day as I can stay in the room where he's napping to supervise and make sure he doesn't roll over. But I'm guessing we can't do this at night! Does anyone have any idea why this is happening and any suggestions for what I can do at night?

In case it's relevant, the same weekend he started sleeping poorly I discovered the very beginnings of a front tooth coming through - I can see and feel it with my finger. He also is biting his hands constantly when awake and dribbling everywhere! I can see why this might have made his sleep worse, but I don't understand why this would make him want to be swaddled? Hopefully one of you with more of a clue than me will know

Has he actually rolled? 9 weeks would be remarkably young! My baby is nearly 6 months and hasn't rolled back to front yet!! If he hasn't you're fine to keep swaddling. Most babies roll somewhere between 4 and 6 months I think.

He's not fully rolled over yet but he gets as far as onto his side quite often. He's a weirdly strong baby, and I don't think he's actually cognitively developed enough to be deliberately trying to roll, he just thrashes around until he gets there he also does the other "signs" of being ready to roll that are cited online as reasons to stop swaddling

Try swaddling with one arm out if you haven't already. It's safer than both arms in and it will be fine to continue at this age. We swaddled with one arm until baby was 6+ months as she was a late mover and didn't settle in a sleeping bag. You'll know when the time's right to stop. Hope you all get more sleep soon, it's hard at this age.