Like most new parents, we are constantly asked whether or not Baby H is a good sleeper. In the early days, I was always sad to report that she wasn’t. It’s not that I expected her to be sleeping through the night – I’m a fairly realistic person – but I thought that we’d be able to lay her down in her crib or co-sleeper and that she’d at least lay there for a little bit. Nope, not our baby.
From Day 1, Baby H has been a mover and a shaker. Her arms and legs never stop! She always managed to get at least one arm out of her swaddle, no matter how tightly she’d been tucked in. And when she was swaddled, she would lay there lifting her legs up and down like she was having a little workout session in her crib.
Needless to say, for the first couple of weeks little sleep was had by all. It was incredibly hard.
Then I remembered the Miracle Blanket, which I’d heard great things about. I’d actually registered for one but no one bought it for us. Oh, how I wish we’d had this from the very beginning! The great thing about this blanket is that not only does it take the guess work out of swaddling with a normal blanket (I’m terrible at it), it has flaps that you use to keep the baby’s arms in place and then you tightly swaddle the rest of the baby’s body. It’s genius! Remember how Baby H is a Houdini who can easily wiggle out of a swaddle? Not with the Miracle Blanket! It keeps her hands peacefully at her sides (she can still do her leg lifts, though!).
It. Is. Amazing. Our nights drastically changed after the Miracle Blanket. She either wasn’t fussy when we swaddled her or she calmed down once we started swaddling her. And, best of all, she went to sleep once she was swaddled! If she was sleepy enough I placed her in her crib. If she was still awake, I’d nurse her for a little bit until she was sleepy and then in the crib she went. She’d often wake up once or twice within the first hour and we would either rock her or I’d nurse her a little bit more. And then she’d be fast asleep!
That was probably for the first 3-9 weeks of Baby H’s life. And then, in the past week, she has reinvented the wheel (babies tend to do this, don’t they?!). All of a sudden she started fighting the swaddle and screaming! One night when it seemed like this was not going to end, I unswaddled her and frantically put her in a sleep sack. After rocking her for a bit until she was asleep, I put her down in her crib and she had an amazing night of sleep. She’d wiggle around and flail her arms but not wake herself up.
Since our first (successful) night of no swaddle, things have been hit or miss. Sometimes she’ll go to sleep easily and sleep well in the sleep sack. Other nights she flails around like crazy and constantly wakes herself up, which means back in the swaddle she goes. I like not having her swaddled if it works for her – even though the swaddle is supposed to be cozy and comforting, inside I hate the idea of her arms strapped to her sides. It’s so restricting!
But, swaddled or not swaddled, at 10 weeks she’s doing incredibly well with her sleep (in my opinion). She consistently sleeps for 4-5 hour stretches at night, sometimes longer if we’re lucky! Last night was a near perfect night of sleep (for all of us):
9pm: Baby H asleep in her crib (swaddled – she was a wiggle worm last night!)
4:15am: Baby H woke up for a quick feeding
4:30am: Baby H back asleep in her crib
6:30am: Mommy went down to the nursery to wake up Baby H, feed her, and get ready for the Farmer’s Market!
I have to say that I, as a proud momma, think that’s pretty awesome! She’s sleeping so well and for such long stretches, I’m hopeful that she’ll sleep through the night soon. And, I went to bed around 11pm, so I got around 5 blissful hours of sleep before Baby H’s feeding. Ladies with newborns, keep the faith that sleep will return!
Now that Baby H is getting the hang of sleeping at night, I’m working on a nap routine with her before I go back to work. She’s too young for us to be terribly strict with her on a schedule, but I do want to start getting her to nap on her own at least once a day. Typically she’ll nap in her swing or laying on me, but getting at least one good nap a day in her crib is the goal. In fact, as I write this she’s been sleeping for 30 minutes in her crib (unswaddled!) and she had a 45 minute crib nap this morning. Even if they are short naps, I’m excited by her ability to start napping alone.
My daytime nap routine is:
- Watch Baby H’s “sleepy cues”: rubbing face, general fussiness, yawning
- Take her into her nursery, turn on the white noise machine and either put her in a sleep sack or swaddle her
- Nurse her until she falls asleep
- Let her sleep in my arms/on the nursing pillow for about 15 minutes or until she is sound asleep
- Put sleeping baby into her crib and quietly scurry away
- Hope and pray for at least an hour of sleeping baby
Eventually I’d like her to just go down for a nap easily in her crib, but in the short term I just want to get her used to napping independently.
Everything with Baby H has a learning curve, and anything can change on a moment’s notice. Tomorrow night she could decide she doesn’t want to sleep. But I can remember the early days with her and how I never thought we would sleep again. And if we’ve come this far, we must be doing something right!
Watching Baby H’s cues and keeping to a routine is vital to making sure she sleeps well. What has helped you get your little one to snooze?
hostess / honeydew / 9001 posts
newborn sleep posts always fascinate me because i’m at a loss of how we’ll figure things out; but am a firm believer in the go with flow once baby is here method…. maybe I’m a bit naive? :P
good luck with the upcoming weeks, hope she makes more positive steps forward in her sleep schedule!
blogger / nectarine / 2043 posts
I’m always so interested in reading about what has worked and what hasn’t at various ages when it comes to sleeping. I’m definitely going to file away the Miracle Blanket in my head for future use. I’ll need it since I proved to be a terrible swaddler with my niece; she always worked out one arm, too!
guest
My son is 8.5 weeks old, and his sleep is MOSTLY all over the place. He also is a houdini with the swaddle, but I’m not willing to purchase the miracle blanket, because our house doesn’t have AC, and I worry that he will over heat!
He currently will nap in his crib, but he usually only gets in one good nap (2-3 hours), other naps are 20-50 minutes depending on if he wakes himself up. Although, I read that good naps are a developmental thing, and babies have to grow into them!
At night he usually does a 3ish hour stretch, and then after that it’s unpredictable. Last week, he slept for five hours, and then for three! That was our best night yet, on our worst nights, he does a 3-3.5 hour stretch, and then up every 1.5 hours after that.
I nurse him when he wakes up, and often he only nurses for 5 minutes and then is right back to sleep. I wonder if he could self soothe if he wouldn’t really wake all the way up. He won’t take a pacifier, or I would try that.
I’m hoping his 3 hour stretches get longer!
guest
I think I could have written this post myself 2 months ago! It wasn’t long after 10 weeks that my baby girl started sleeping through the night. I think it was right around 12 weeks. It started as a night here and there, and once I knew she could do it, I started letting her fuss for a few minutes before jumping up to feed her at 3 or 4 am. Most of the time she would fall back to sleep in a few minutes! And within days she stopped waking all together.
We’re almost at the 5 month mark now, and with her new found love of rolling onto her belly we have lost a lot of sleep once again : ( She gets her poor little arms stuck in the crib rails too. Hopefully she will learn to flip back over ASAP! Although I’m sure there will be another milestone to interrupt us once this one has passed!
coffee bean / 28 posts
We LOVED the Miracle Blanket. It was a lifesaver for us. I didn’t swaddle my LO when we first brought him home because I could never get the regular blankets right, and like many other babies, he always wiggled his way out. We tried the MB at about 8 weeks and he slept through the night. We’re talking like 7 hours straight. I was amazed! He loved that swaddle so much that we swaddled him much longer than I ever thought he would tolerate (until about 7 months), and eventually he was sleeping about 10 hour stretches most nights. I was always concerned about it hindering his development. He was a late roller, but it really seemed to soothe him and it also helped us since he’s a somewhat rashy baby and it kept him from scratching himself. And of course he did eventually roll (front to back and back to front in the same week!) The night I had to put away the swaddle blanket was a sad night indeed, but he eventually got big enough and strong enough to break out of it and since he had been breaking out of it pretty consistently for a few weeks he seemed to transition fairly well to sleep without it. Allison K – the no A/C thing is tough, but I will tell you that we live in FL and my LO runs hot. We would typically put him in a onesie and then the MB during the summer months and he was just fine. It’s definitely heavier than your Muslin swaddles, but I wouldn’t say it’s incredibly heavy. We had a few and the beige one was definitely lighter than the ones with the piping.
olive / 58 posts
I have a sleepy 8 week old LOL.
She wakes ever 3-4 hrs at night still for a full feed (pumped bm) and then goes back down.
I am a serious believer in swaddling. I did not for the first couple weeks and lo was always fussy. Now she has 1-3 hour naps throughout the day. She is up for appriximately an hour or more between naps during the day and more in the evening.
I think we’re pretty lucky but have to thank mr. swaddle amd ms. white noise machine for being well rested
apricot / 268 posts
The Miracle Blanket was a lifesaver for us also. We didn’t start using it until about 5 weeks because as a FTM I thought “he likes having his arms out”. HA! How annoying it was that Dr. Karp was right and I was wrong :). Once we had him in that and used the white noise machine, he was a whole new baby. He was sleeping 10 hours straight through at night (8p-6a) for about the last 6 weeks- we were very spoiled!
As you said- things can change at a moment’s notice, as I’m now learning! Now at 14 weeks, he’s woken up 2-4x a night the last 3 nights and we want to pull our hair out! We don’t know if it’s a growth spurt (he won’t go back to sleep until he eats), teething, or something else. So I’m starting to feel as though there is going to be no such thing as a “routine” for a while. I’m sticking with a consistent bedtime and trying to put him down for naps after being up for an hour and a 1/2- I think that’s the best I can do at this point! I’m also sticking with the swaddle as long as possible- I think his legs and arms are still too out of control and I feel like it’s the only thing that’s letting him get any “good” sleep.
apricot / 290 posts
We’re double swaddlers-first the miracle blanket and then an aden + anais blanket…now at 10 weeks she’s been sleeping through the night since 4.5 weeks (first 10-7, then 9-7, now we put her down at 8:30 and she sleeps until 7:30). Naps are a totally different story! She’ll nap if we are in the car or she’s in the stroller (and sometimes the stroller is hit or miss). I’m looking forward to hearing how baby H does with nap routines!
blogger / cherry / 201 posts
@mrsjyw: yes, it’s definitely a lot of go with the flow, especially in the early days!
@kimbed: I know, it’s amazing the difference the Miracle Blanket can make :) And it’s SO MUCH EASIER than swaddling the traditional way.
@mom2b2agirl: Yes, the white noise machine is a life saver too (especially with 4th of July fireworks last night)!
@dookie32: I know, it’s funny how quickly things can change. And for us, once the nights seem to be (somewhat) tackled, the days are a bit of a mystery as to figuring out what works for getting her to sleep.
hostess / cantaloupe / 7467 posts
Do we have the same baby???? They are sleeping at night the same. But during the day she does not sleep. Only for 15-39 minutes in someone’s arms! But it only started these past two weeks. Before that she’ll at least sleep in her crib twice daily. Usually in 30, 60 minutes or 2 hr intervals.
I hope those come back soon!
GOLD / honeydew / 8206 posts
My baby is 11 weeks tomorrow and was a terrible sleeper after the 1st week. we tried the miracle blanket but it didnt work for us so I returned it. I was very sad that it didnt work for us.
guest
Oh, memories of trying to get my son to sleep. I used the SwaddleMe, but I heard good things about the Miracle blanket as well. We got that as a gift and our son was comfortable in it. So we kept it and actually bought the next size up when he outgrew the small size. My husband loved it too because he could easily swaddle our son with this blanket vs. the traditional square blanket.
cherry / 137 posts
Our LO is also 10 weeks and almost following the same schedule as yours! We use a Swaddleme and then an A+A blanket on top and Mozart as our white noise, although that is being phased out with our new Marpac white noise machine.
We’ve tried the Miracle blanket a couple times, but she didn’t seem to like it as much, and she’s been trying to break out of the Swaddleme some mornings, and will fuss until we let her arms out and then she goes back to sleep. But I’ve been wanting to give the MB another try too.
Currently, we still need to put LO down completely asleep. I rock LO in the glider and DH will walk her around until she’s asleep. I’ve been a little stressed about starting to train her to fall asleep on her own and being able to put her down “drowsy but awake”, but the couple times we’ve tried have been huge fails. I know I should be happy with the amount of sleep she’s been giving us at night, so will wait a little until she’s ready.
Thanks for this post! Makes this first time mom feel a little better about her baby’s sleep. =)
coffee bean / 42 posts
I’m late to the party here but I wanted to add that the Miracle Blanket was a true miracle for us too–until 14 weeks. The makers of the Miracle Blanket recommend discontinuing use at 14 weeks, for several reasons. When my LO started busting out of it right at 14 weeks, we decided it was time to switch her to a sleep sack. Bad times. Serious regression in sleeping through the night, which had basically been going strong since week 8. So, I did some research and found the Magic Sleep Sack. I thought it was a little crazy, and since my baby is on the small side, I wasn’t sure it would work, but I rolled the dice and ordered it anyway. After 2 weeks of her waking up between 1 and 4 and not being very interested in food at that hour, I decided to give the Magic Sleep Sack a try. She looks a lot like Maggie Simpson with her arms outstretched, but it works like a charm! The suit is puffy almost like a parka for babies but it encapsulates their arms and legs so that they really can’t move off of their back. Since my LO can flip from back to front but not vice-versa, I was finding her on her tummy crying in her crib. This prevents that, and she seems much happier in the morning, much like she did when we first started using the Miracle Blanket! Not sure how long this will work, but it’s a keeper!