My Baby outgrew swaddling. Now what?

The use of swaddles decreases the risks of SIDs… until your baby can roll from their back to their tummy. Just think, how well can you lift and turn your head when your arms are pinned to your side? To read more about babies and sleep, check out The Happiest Baby Guide to Great Sleep by Harvey Karp, M.D. (from Amazon).

When our baby learned to roll, we transitioned directly to sleep sacks and IT WAS ROUGH. Sleep sacks are great, but Baby was not ready yet. She still had her startle reflex and would wake herself minutes after we set her in the bassinet. Sleep was a rare luxury.

Then we found the Baby Merlin’s Magic Sleepsuit Swaddle Transitioner (Amazon). It was indeed magic and we affectionately named it her Marshmallow suit. This suit is fluffy like a puff jacket (think A Christmas Story) and makes Baby feel like she’s being swaddled while keeping her arms free. In fact she never managed to roll to her tummy while wearing it. Most importantly, she couldn’t flail her arms and she remained asleep ALL night.

Now that she has grown out of her startle reflex, we have returned to the sleep sack. The Halo swaddle sleepsacks (Amazon) we discussed in our swaddling post can be converted into a sleep sack by simply velcroing the wings under instead of over the arms. 

For us, this transition was fast and absolute. We practiced tummy time for months without luck, until the day before Thanksgiving. She rolled once, then again and again, practicing her skill. 

We didn’t change our swaddling habits at first because how easy could it be to roll with your arms pinned? But one second night, I placed her in the bassinet and she immediately rolled onto her face and was, of course, stuck because she had yet to learn how to roll back

I am thankful that I was there to turn her back over and to take her arms out of the swaddle; but, it would have been better to be prepared. We should have acted when she first rolled and had a sleepsuit ready to go.