When Should You Stop Swaddling Your Baby?

I was just about to ask this question! I am glad I am not the only one still doing it, although my little one is 2.5 months! What did you decide to do?

A.

My friend kept her daughter swaddled until she started rolling over. Then she became concerned that her daughter couldn't get her arms out to help move her head to the side.

My son loved to be swaddled and I ocntinued to do it until he was about 5 1/2 months although finding big enough blankets became a challenge.

I beleive the book, The Happiest Baby on The Block mentions that some babies like to be swaddled up to six and even seven months old.

Most importantly if he sleeps better this way, stick with it! How he sleeps is not as important as if he is sleeping.

The answer is simple, when your baby stops benefiting from it. My daughter loved to be swaddeled until she was about 2 and 1/2 months. That's when she discovered she could suck on her hands. At that point we started to swaddel her from the chest down. She got tired of that when she was about 4 months (made it too hard for her to roll around) so now we're all about the fleece PJs with a pair of socks under neath (her toes get cold just like mommy's.)

For now if he's happy and sleeping well I say let him be.

I can't say for sure when I stopped swaddling my two boys, and my daughter is only one month old. But what I do remember is that I kept them swaddled until they didn't need it anymore. I just make sure that I keep my little girl out of her blanket during the day as much as I can. When she gets agitated and flails her hands, I bundle her back up. With my boys, they got to the point where they got agitated with the blanket on so then I unwrapped them but let them keep the blanket with them to cuddle with. I don't know if this advice will really help, but my opinion is, there's no such thing as a "normal" timeframe for any one child so just do what keeps you and your son comfortable.

You stop swaddling when your child will no longer tolerate it or it becomes impractical (size of blanket, weather, etc.). There is no research or evidence that swaddling is harmful for development, as long as you do adequate tummy time, etc.

I've heard of people swaddling past a year with the miracle blanket. The feet do not fit in the pouch, but the parents wrap up the arms.

We stopped swaddling around 4 months? He was wanting to roll around and kicking out. It was getting really frustrating. It took about a week for him to adjust and we did have to go in to soothe and eventually let him cry a bit, since he woke himself up a lot. Then he figured out how to roll onto his tummy to sleep...so there are adventures when you decide to stop swaddling.

We kept swaddling our son until he got too active for it. He started working his way out of it some nights and other nights he would roll over onto his tummy, sometimes face-down. We started putting him in a sleep sack instead. If I recall correctly, he cried a little the first few nights, and we just went in and comforted him until he calmed down and was able to sleep again.

Might be time to try switching to a sleepsack! I swaddled my son until he was a little over 5 months. I became concerned because he could rollover and I didn't want him to rollover when he was swaddled. It took a few nights of crying, but we successfully transitioned out of it. Some of my friends did a slow transition; 1 arm out, 1 arm in and then just swaddled the lower body so the arms were free. That didn't really work for us, so we just went cold turkey to the sleepsack. A little rough at first, but he was SO HAPPY to be able to turn over onto his belly and sleep!! Good luck!

There is a great video/DVD about swaddling. It's called " The Happiest Baby on the Block". Unfortunately I'm sitting in a library now and don't remember the name of the Doctor who created it.
Personally I'v swaddled my son until he couldn't fit in the blanket and was moving too much to stay covered, but I don't remember when was it exactly.