Why do all the message boards, when prompted for advice about how to wean your baby from swaddling in order to fall asleep, rarely give advice to this effect but instead usually question the person posting as to why they feel the need to wean and/or offer all sorts of ways you can make swaddling even more effective, such as double swaddling, using duct tape to secure the swaddle (yeah, really), getting crafty and making your own swaddle when your baby's outgrown even the larger blankets, etc.? It's not like they asked about weaning from breastfeeding to formula and you feel you should throw in your two cents about why breast is best just in case they're still on the fence. I mean, honestly, people must feel so strongly about anything related to how they raised their children and end up offering an agenda over genuine advice. And when people do offer advice, it's inevitably incredibly vague...Because no one remembers the details of what they did for any given challenge during the entire first year of their child's life! They just remember that somehow, their child went from only falling asleep wrapped up tight like a burrito to falling asleep on their own, unwrapped, in their crib, in their own room, like perfect little angels.
Anyway, clearly we're in the process of trying to figure out how to undo everything we did those first few months (thanks a lot, Dr. Karp), now that the shushing, swinging, and swaddling have lost their optimal effectiveness and yet still seem annoyingly and tediously necessary. If anyone has actual advice to share we'd be ever so grateful. As Elaine lamented about the sex scenes in The English Patient in the Seinfeld episode of the same title, "I mean, please! Gimme something I can use!"
2 comments:
I read a suggestion somewhere to continue swaddling while introducing a new sleep cue, like a lullaby or something. Then you can try taking away the swaddle and let the new sleepytime indicators work their magic. I have not tested this theory myself, however.
I love that you found a way to compare swaddling a baby to the sex scenes in "The English Patient" ;)
Yes, I have this vague memory of watching a lot of television and films once upon a time :)
We do a number of things simultaneously - swaddling, white noise, rocking or bouncing, and shushing. I guess I could try something in addition to that, or in place of some of that and then work on the swaddle situation.
We did manage to get an hour and a half nap out of him today semi-swaddled, i.e. one arm in, one arm out. He even managed to wriggle the other arm free and stayed asleep that way. Like everything else with babies, I think we just need to be consistent and patient. I, of course, want results yesterday!
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