Goodbye Swaddle

It's time to break the swaddle.

I knew the day would come. I knew she wouldn't go to high school still being wrapped into a tight burrito baby. But I dreaded it. I relished our swaddled baby. And what's more, she relished it. She loves being wrapped tightly, securely. And it makes her such an easy little manageable package. No loose arms, little hands groping at my nose or curling tiny little fingers inextricably into my hair. No fumbling legs. Just one, sweet, tight little bundle.

But alas. No more. Even though I knew the day would come when we had to start to let her sleep unswaddled, I never thought it would happen for the reason it did.

We use a miracle blanket. And it has been miraculous! She broke out of other swaddles in no time flat, but this thing was inescapable. It features an ingenious design that basically uses her own body weight to pin her arms down by her side. Wrapping around her pinned arms is about three feet of fabric that goes around and around and around. I had heard of other parents whose kids broke out of the miracle blanket. I couldn't understand how. They must have just been doing it wrong. Wrapping it too loosely. On top of the inescapable miracle blanket, we put her in a sleep sack. A recipe for tightly bundled, inescapable bliss, right?

I was so wrong.

Two nights ago, I went in to wake her in the morning and I noticed the sleep sack was turned 90 degrees, so that the arm whole was in front of her chest. I imagined she'd just spent the night scooting around like she does (even in all of her straight-jacket trappings, she still scoots all over the crib at night). But as I started to unzip and unwrap her, I noticed the pieces of the miracle blanket were not where we had left them. The arm flaps were no longer over her arms but under her back--they were across her chest. A knee was poking out of the foot pocket. And the three-foot-long outer wrap was only wrapped around her once. It was like someone had done a piss-poor swaddle job. Only no one had touched her all night long.

Uh oh.

The next night confirmed our suspicions. TH went in to find her not only escaped from the tight confines of the swaddle, but with one arm sticking out of the arm hole of the sleep sack.

Somehow she has learned how to bust out of her baby straight jacket.

The only thing I can think of is that she rocks to her side at night, which defeats the body-weight-keeping-her-arms-pinned-down design.

Regardless of how she's doing it, there is no denying that she IS doing it.

So operation de-swaddle has begun. We will begin by wrapping her with one arm free so that she still mainly feels the familiar tightness but begins to learn to be comfortable with free, movable limbs. Do that three, four, maybe seven nights. Then we'll leave both arms out of the swaddle and just keep the tightness around her torso. Repeat time frame. Then . . . *deep breath* . . . completely swaddle free.

I'm not going to lie. I'm scared shitless. Already four weeks into our four-month-wakeful battles, we are on the brink of being as sleep deprived as we were when she was a newborn. We are thankful for the nights she only wakes up once. THANKFUL. And now we are about to unwrap her, to send her into the long hours of the night without the safety of the tightness, the comfort of the wrap. I have low hopes for what this does to her sleep habits.

Trying to look on the bright side, though, it will be nice to get to the point where she doesn't have to be swaddled to sleep well. It will be nice to be able to start working a book into our bedtime routine (cuddling with mom in the rocker doesn't really work so well when you are wrapped into a little torpedo shape).

And it will be nice to get this big transition behind us so that it's not looming on the horizon any longer, the way it has for the last couple of months when I could sense it drawing nigh.

Tonight is night one. Heaven help us.