For those that broke the swaddle habit

How long did it take? I tried last night and she was up every 1-2 hours with the hands hitting the face/knocking out her paci.

Will she just get used to the hands flailing around or will the hands stop themselves?

DD is 3 months. I know you can swaddle longer however I really want to be done with it, I am going back to work and want to break this b/4 then.

Thanks!!!!!!

Re: For those that broke the swaddle habit

I would like to know this too. DS is 4 months and we'd like to ween him. However i have a feeling its going to go very badly.

Re: For those that broke the swaddle habit

We had to do it cold turkey at around 3 or 4 months because one morning I found DS face down and he couldnt flip back over while swaddled. It was hard for him to fall asleep, it lasted about a week or two. We also needed to start the CIO method at this time. But it worked like a charm and DS is a great sleeper.

Re: For those that broke the swaddle habit

Re: For those that broke the swaddle habit

I swaddled DD for about 5 months and I went back to work at 3 months--it wasn't a big deal. She ended it herself when she was ready; I didn't have to do a thing.

Re: For those that broke the swaddle habit

Re: For those that broke the swaddle habit

Re: For those that broke the swaddle habit

Dumb question. What is the reason why someone would stop? Please forgive my ignorance.

Re: For those that broke the swaddle habit

We did it cold turkey and luckily had no problems.
I was a huge fan of it (despite straight jacket comments from both my mom and MIL!!)
My ped scared me though. He said that he didn't like it because as they get bigger (3 months +) he felt it interfered with normal motor development. I guess moving around at night??

That said, I know plenty of people who have done it way past 3 months and their kids developed just fine....

Re: For those that broke the swaddle habit

Re: For those that broke the swaddle habit

Re: For those that broke the swaddle habit

Re: For those that broke the swaddle habit

I have swaddled DD ONLY at bedtime since she was born. She just turned 5 months and I NEED to stop swaddling her. She has not rolled over yet and I feel it is because of being swaddled at night. She wont roll over, but she can sit on her own!! My ped recently told me this and now I feel like it's my fault that she has not rolled over yet and that I caused the delay

ETA: she has hit every development milestone that a 5 month old should be doing, minus rolling over...so I kind of believing my ped's reasoning....ugh ,the guilt!

I also want to add that I just swaddle her arms,,from waist down she is unswaddled

Message edited 10/29/2008 3:27:44 PM.

Re: For those that broke the swaddle habit

I quit cold turkey but not until 6 mos and not until she was ready. I knew she was ready because she was breaking out and had rolled over. She broke out for a while but it was always after she woke up. The final straw was when she broke out in the very early a.m. (around 4) and was on her belly. I was too nervous to let it continue. She slept through the night the first night. I was really scared to stop but I think it was easy because she was ready. I got a lot of pressure to stop earlier but I didn't see any harm in doing it until she was ready to stop. She was sleeping great...and so was I.

Re: For those that broke the swaddle habit

DD started breaking her arms out of her swaddle but would not sleep without being swaddled...so i did it from the armpits down!
I think we finally completely got rid of swaddling around 4-5months

Re: For those that broke the swaddle habit

DS was 6 months when we stopped swaddling for bedtime and 7 (maybe even 8) months when we stopped for nap time. There was no transition I think because of his age. At that point swaddling was merely and indication of sleep time for him. We stopped one day and never had any issues. There is no way we would have lasted 1 day at 4 months old, at that age those hand were so crazy they would wake him up in a heartbeat the few times I tried to put him down w/o swaddle if for example he fell asleep with a bottle or something!

We stopped because DS would hit the mattress, move his arms out of the swaddle and roll over to be on his belly, he was basically saying, Hey guys this thing is a waste of time.

Re: For those that broke the swaddle habit

DS is almost 5 months. I attempted to stop cold turkey last month when I put him in his crib. If he was asleep when I put him down I wouldn't swaddle him. He would break out anyway sometimes and still sleep so I figured it wasn't keeping him from sleeping longer.
Now the weird thing is I don't usually swaddle him at bedtime, but sometimes during naps I do. I'll lay him down without being swaddled, he'll start to fuss, then I'll tuck his arms in and he'll close his eyes and go to sleep.
I'm trying to stop because my ped said he was getting too big for it as well, but he won't nap for more than an hour at a time, and sometimes swaddling him will put him back to sleep.
Good luck!

Re: For those that broke the swaddle habit

We didn't stop swaddling until Kaydyn was 6 months and at that time she was breaking out of it almost every night so we figured she was ready. We stopped swaddling for naps at 5 months. She was so much happier and slept so much better swaddled so we kept doing it.

Re: For those that broke the swaddle habit

I swaddled til DS was 6 months

Re: For those that broke the swaddle habit

I stopped swaddling my dd when she was 5 months. I just stopped one night and she was fine.

GL!

Re: For those that broke the swaddle habit

well, we stopped at 2 weeks... not out of our choice... out of his!

no matter how we did it, he wanted free arms so he managed to wiggle out. even with the special swaddle blankets.

now we swaddle him below his arms (so they stay free)... maybe shifting the blanket down may be a way to wean her off of the swaddling if that's your goal....

Re: For those that broke the swaddle habit

So girls how hard was it those first few nights???

Did anyone quit after a few days and go back to swaddling for a few more weeks?

Can you tell i'm nervous to quit?

Re: For those that broke the swaddle habit

I stopped around 5 months---only because he was starting to break out of the miracle blanket!! Before that he was perfectly content and I saw no reason to mess with it---he let me know when he was ready! But then when I left him unswaddled he had a hard time with his arms flailing....so over 1 week or so we did 1 arm out, both arms out then unswaddled (in a sleepsack) and he did fine after a couple nights--it was a bit tough those first night, but shortly thereafter he figured out how to roll on his belly and became a belly sleeper!

Re: For those that broke the swaddle habit

Well, it was pretty easy for us. DS decided he was not going to wear the swaddle anymore.. so we just ended it.