Friday, February 23, 2007

Away with the swaddle

We elminated swaddling Maggie on Wednesday. For the past week, she breaks out of it during most naps and early in the mornings and wakes herself up with all her free movement. Therefore, we decided that it was best to stop swaddling her so that she can learn to sleep on her own. A mom friend of mine likened it to re-learning to sleep without a pillow. Thus, it's been a rough go for the past 3 days. We are also coupling her sans-swaddle sleeping with allowing her to cry it out; we felt like she was ready. Overall, I think the past few days have been good, though hard to hear her cry for 20 mintues, give or take. She usually goes down well, with a few minutes of good crying, then goes to sleep. Then, about 30-45 minutes into her nap, she starts to cry and it lasts awhile (15-30 minutes). I think this is when the most intense crying happens, but it goes in waves. It's hard to judge when to go in and when not to. She hasn't found her hands yet to soothe her (because she inevitably spits out her bink when I first put it in), so she just lays there and cries. We want to help her develop good sleeping skills and learn to self-soothe. For about 2 weeks prior to this Wednesday, we started a gradual cry it out, going into her room in increments of time if she was crying. Now, we have decided not to go in, unless she is hysterically crying for x-amount of time. I don't think I anticipated how emotionally draining it would be. I haven't cried, but I just feel tired by day's end. I also have felt sad for her at times, but overall, I know that we are creating healthy sleep habits for her.

2 comments:

  1. Good for you! :) I swaddled Angelina a lot when she was a baby, up until she was about 3.5 months. She had been breaking out of the swaddle for about a month, so I said forget it too. :) Since Zoe was a preemie, she was swaddled a lot in the hospital, but towards the end of her stay, the nurses weren't swaddling her, so she hated to be swaddled shortly after we got home. :) These kings of decisions are always hard, especially if a hysterical reaction occurs, but it feels good when they go to sleep without their comfortable "habits". i.e. Swaddle, Pacifier, bottle, etc. The Pacifier was REALLY hard to take from Angelina, so imagine my relief when Zoe decides she really doesn't need it. Motherhood definitely suites you Suz! How many more do you and Aron plan on havin? :)

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  2. My response exactly! Good for you! I agree with all your friend had to say about swaddling :) You will be soooo thankful that you've established healthy sleeping patterns from the start. It will make being a momma that much easier when you've had a solid night's rest, daddy's had a good sleep, and baby is all rested up too. So great! Way to make tough decisions to do the best for your girl, it's nice that we get some practice in on these "easier" things before the big ones come our way (preschool or not, homeschooling or not, do I let her do a mission trip in high school . . . augh, I have to stop! :o) You and Aron are doing great!

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