how do i know when to stop swaddling?

[booboobunny]

i have been swaddling my baby, quite successfully, since he was about 3 weeks old. he's now a big bruiser of 15 weeks and more than capable of getting both arms and a leg out of the blanket much of the time. i am still persisting with swaddling him for naps and bedtime though as it works really well in letting him know it's time for a sleep and he settles pretty well once i've done it. i'm just wondering when i should stop and what replaces it as his cue to sleep. his arm movements are still pretty jerky so i don't want to stop right now, but sometimes it seems to be his night's work to wriggle free of the blanket and i feel it may be becoming slightly counter-productive. any advice would be much appreciated....

I'd say at about 15 years! .

Seriously though, I've no experience of swaddling but I think in your position I'd probably give up around now and just tuck him in securely to give him those sleep signals. He's at that age where they start to find their own favourite sleep position, iirc.

no idea... didnt swaddle (didnt get anywhere with it) but i do know about cues to sleep being hard to change... harder for parents than dc i suspect

have you thought about baby sleepbag thingies? zipping/buttoning him into one of those may replace the swaddling as a cue to sleep. they worked a treat with ds1 and i worried not about covers being kicked off... he was such a good sleeper... sigh.

course, ds2 had other ideas... and by ds3 i had stopped trying

I swaddled till ds was 5.5moths, then he let us know he didn't want it anymore but screaming like a banshee suddenly at bedtime. We used a "miracle blanket" and by the end ds' legs wouldn't fit in it.

I wouldn't change it if your ds is still sleeping well but I am a coward!

we swaddled til 6 months! he slept really well without the swaddle, and more importantly, didnt scratch his eczema. then one day he just resisted swaddling. I got annoyed and thought sod you then, go to sleep without it. And he did.

We had tried on many occasions to stop swaddling, but he wasnt happy until he decided to stop.

we also used a miracle blanket, they are fab.

and it was suggested to me (though it didnt work!) to leave out the legs, then 1 arm then the other one, so to stop swaddling gradually.

good luck

leave him be!

Once he is fed up with it, he will let you know by getting out straight away, then it is time to stop. It is doing him no harm at all, he likes it, so don't worry about it. My twins were swaddled until about 6 mnths, but then we went to spain, and it was really hot so they didn't want the blankets. Otherwsie, I'm sure they would have carried on for longer. Actually one of them went through a phase where he liked to jsut have one aarm tucked in and the other free.

I am going through the same thing and nobody can answer me. The thing is is that he does resist being swaddled but sleeps so much better when he is (8:00-4:30). I think at 5 months (in a couple weeks) I'm going to try "freeing" him. I don't know if I should do a gradual thing with one arm out at a time etc. or a cold turkey thing. I do have one friend who quit cold turkey at 8 months and all was well. Oh..and he does fight his way out but I figured out a way that he can't. Keep me posted on your progress with this booboobunny. I could use some help with this too.

Well i have finally stopped swaddling DS at 8mo. We've had a few attempts at stopping since DS was 5mo but usually we reverted to swaddling after repeated evening wakings and him scratching his eczema etc.

Now he is having 1.25-2hr naps and is sleeping 7pm-6.45am. So think he just wasn't ready before.

I would carry on til your LO can sleep well without- maybe try every now and again if you want to stop. We basically put him down in his sleeping bag, with a comforter next to his face, and give him a kiss and leave him to settle. After 3 days, he now falls asleep within 5 mins and i know he can resettle if he wakes in the night without one of us going in to reswaddle.