Swaddle to Sleep Sack Transition

Before Aaron was born we watched a bunch of youtube videos to learn how to swaddle. And I really thought I could do it… until he was actually here.

Aaron spent a week in the NICU and was perfectly swaddled by the nurses the whole time.

But once he got home and I was the one doing the swaddling it was a completely different story. I was hopeless. No Youtube video could help me. He managed to wiggle his way out, no matter how tight I had it. And every time he squeezed an arm out, he was wide awake.

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So one night in the middle of the night when I wanted to be sleeping, I ordered velcro swaddles. They worked great! And we started to get some sleep.

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Eventually he figured out how to escape the velcro swaddles too. He would spend so much time at night wiggling around and finding ways to get any limbs out that he could. I have so many pictures of him with with an arm hanging out of the velcro swaddle. But I think my favorite had to be the time he managed to get his entire bottom half out. Still have no idea how he did that, and he was sleeping in the bassinet in our room at the time.

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So my next middle of the night purchase was the Love to Dream zipper swaddle. They allow the baby’s hands to be up which seems much more comfortable and there was no way he can squeeze anything out of this swaddle. If I was starting over, I would probably go straight to this swaddle.

Once he started to outgrow the size small LTD zip swaddle, we transitioned to the next Love to Dream zipper swaddle. Its a size up and its perfect for slowly transitioning to arms out sleeping. The arms or wings can zip off. This way you can try one arm out at a time to get them used to it. It was the cutest thing – when he started sleeping with one arm out, he would hold my hand while he slept. And for us, this transition happened quickly as having his arms out didn’t seem to affect his sleep. Babies should have their arms out by the time they can roll over from back to belly. This way if they roll over in the night they can push themselves up.

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One of the best things about having your baby sleep with a zipper swaddle, is how much easier it makes middle of the night diaper changes. They zip up or down so you don’t have to completely take off the swaddle every time you need to change them.

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With his arms completely out at night, the next transition to a sleep sack was easy! We got the HALO sleep sack. The are usually only about $20 so I bought a few. And because they’re not super fitted, he’ll be able to wear them much longer. The size medium that he is using now is for 6-12 months. We also got him a fleece sleep sack and he is just oh so cozy in it.

I know people swear by a weighted sleep sack, the merlin suit, zipadeezips, etc. Every kid is oh so different. This is what we tried and through a whole lot of trial and error, what worked for us.

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