Monday, January 30, 2012

the swaddle

i get up countless times in the night to stick avery's soother back in. she's rarely crying - it's usually just her talking voice in the middle of the night as she sucks on her fist. i tiptoe in, stick the soother in, rub her forehead, and tiptoe back to bed. and repeat. and repeat. and repeat until her little waving arms settle enough that she falls back to sleep. between 5 - 7am, i don't know how much she really sleeps at all - sometimes it feels like i just keep putting her soother in a hundred times. the thing is, if i get her up out of bed (i remember this being the time that ben woke up for a long time for his first bottle), she can't drink her bottle - she's all crazy and choking on the formula. so at least i know to leave her in bed. finally, by about 6:30-7am, i give in. i unzip her sleep sack, usually change her diaper if she's wet through the back, and i swaddle her up tight in a blanket. she sometimes cries a little but most often she falls to sleep instantly. she then sleeps in her tight swaddle from 7am to between 9 - 10am.

so why don't i just swaddle right away when she wakes up at 5am? i have it in my head that she needs to learn to fall asleep without the swaddle which is why we never swaddle at night. is this crazy? should i just swaddle immediately when she wakes up? i don't know. i was wondering how long people swaddle for (since we only swaddled for weeks with ben) and looked it up on my favourite babycenter.com. i couldn't find a good answer as to when i should be stopping! so i guess i'll keep doing it for awhile longer. we swaddle for every nap. she always cries a little but she gets over it and falls asleep pretty quickly usually. why wouldn't i swaddle?

3 comments:

LaelDyck said...

We swaddled Jacob until he was rolling so much (even when swaddled) that I didn't feel safe having him swaddled anymore. I say swaddle her more often! It sounds like she would do well being swaddle all night.

Megan said...

We swaddle Charlie (he's almost 6 months) & put him in his sleep sack (he looks quite funny) for his naps and at night. Sometimes at night he'll still get an arm out of the swaddle & through the arm hole of the sleep sack. I find that if his arm is out he flings it around & won't settle. I don't know how long we'll be able to swaddle him, but if it helps him sleep I'll be doing it as long as possible:)

Matt said...

i swaddle katie regularly, and shes 26...so...there ya go