My post is long so I appreciate all of you moms taking time out of your busy schedules to read this and hopefully respond. I feel the need to give you all as much info as possible so the advice I may receive as a result is as specific as it can be.
I have a VERY active six-month-old daughter who is a complete joy. She has always been extremely active, even in the womb — she is (and was) ALWAYS moving. I swear she is like the Engergizer bunny!! We found within hours of her birth that swaddling her for sleeping was a perfect solution and that has been validated every nap and night since. Swaddling immediately calms her active little body and has been a strong signal for her to go to sleep. I have been so blessed — she's been sleeping through the night since about 8 weeks and can go to sleep on her own with ease ... IF she's swaddled.
Until about two weeks ago.
Her active arms, hands, legs and feet are breaking even the tightest swaddle! As of late, she's made a habit of breaking the swaddle before I can finish it!! When this happens, she'll grunt and growl and thrash herself about under the blanket. I kept thinking that she just needs to calm down, succumb to the swaddle and go to sleep. So I kept trying.
Sometimes, if I swaddled her successfully and she went to sleep, she'd wake up after busting out of the wrap, (sometimes after only sleeping for a few minutes). When this would happen, she'd fuss or sometimes have an all-out melt-down, like she was angry that she wasn't wrapped up anymore. She also pulls her pacifier out of her mouth once her arms are free and upsets herself over this.
She has been drooling buckets and chewing on everything (still no sign of a tooth though). I thought maybe her gums hurt and started giving her Tylenol before bed, as directed by her pediatrician. That hasn't made much of a difference either, which makes me wonder if her gums are hurting her or not ... Once she's freed herself, she literally starts unwrapping the blanket and then starts chewing on it. I'm afraid that she could get tangled up in one of the swaddle blankets because they are very big. (We are currently using aidan and anais summer swaddle blankets made of muslin cotton. They are huge blankets but very lightweight and soft.)
Lately she's been waking up 3, 4, 5, 6 times a night. Ugh. I'm exhausted.
I read some older posts about this topic and although I haven't found anything specific to my situation, I decided to give some things a try. First, I tried swaddling one arm up and leaving one arm free. I read that has been a good way to transition babies out of being swaddled. No luck there. She uses the free arm to irritate herself into not sleeping and frees her trapped arm anyway. Last night, I was absolutely at my wits end. I tried swaddling her four or five times and she was fighting me the whole time. I finally gave up on the swaddle blanket and zipped her up in a sleep sack.
Since she can roll over (and back) with ease, I watched her as she rolled onto her stomach, planted her face down, put her butt in the air and started rocking herself to sleep. Great! But ... she was still up every couple of hours. She would inch worm around her crib (soooo close to crawling, but just not there yet), hit her head on the side of the crib, or once again, she'd pull the pacifier out of her mouth and be mad about it. She would still thrash around but inevitably wind up on her stomach and go to sleep. She's just not STAYING asleep like she used to.
My husband and I finally let her cry it out this morning around 6 am. She was very upset but wasn't hungry and would immediately stop crying if I picked her up. (my husband thinks she's "playing" me.) So, I picked her up, rocked her a bit, did the whole shhhhh, shhhhh thing and put her back down in her crib. She was beside herself but we let her cry for a few minutes before going back in. I put my hand on her back and rubbed it and shushed some more. She still cried. This went on for about 20 minutes or so before she finally drifted off to sleep. While asleep she moved herself completely around the crib ... but she slept until about 9:30.
I know at 6 months many kids change their sleeping habits due to rolling over, teething, etc. I need your help, advice and stories of hope that there is a way to get her to calm down and sleep better. She was such a great sleeper, she still takes good naps during the day but now no one is getting a good night's sleep around here!
What would you do? What have you tried if you've been in a similar situation? What worked well for you?
I am open to any suggestions!!! Thank you for reading and for any help you can give me.
P.S. She is a breastfed baby. We started her on rice cereal at about 4 1/2 months after she was only 37% for weight. She's now starting to eat yellow veggies along with her rice and breast milk.
After all of the great advice, I think we figured out that she may have been hungry!
I started giving her bigger portions of sweet potatoes, rice and breast milk around dinner time and then I gave her a bottle of breast milk right before she went to sleep. I did swaddle her and I am happy to report she slept 10 straight hours! She did break out of her swaddle blanket with both arms sometime through the night but she didn't irritate herself like before.
I think we will still use this as an opportunity to transition her out of the swaddle blanket and into a sleep sack. I'd rather do it gradually, though than quit cold turkey.
Thanks so much for your great advice and input!!
I think she is telling you she is through with swaddling! She needs to be able to move in her crib by that age. She may be fussy about the loose swaddle half on her and half off. I think you need to move on and try some other calming strategies. Perhaps you can try the sleep sacks...
E.;
I agree with both other posters. #1, I used the miracle blanket and it worked wonders...the only one she didn't get out of...but eventually got one arm up and out. We stopped around 4-5 mos of age. I was scared that she wouldn't sleep but did. The rice cereal seemed to help the most. #2 Sounds like she is getting out of the swaddle stage and also may be hungry.
We stopped the paci for my daughter at 5 mos. I got tired of going into the bedroom to put it back in if it fell out. Of course she found her thumb then! Can't win! So, she also uses a sleep machine ( 'sound sleeper' at Babies R us) in the background to distract and comfort her as well as a blanket. We love this line :
http://www.toptoggery.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=C...
or this link
http://pinkelephantboutique.com/shop/product_info.php?cPa...
You can find them here in Denver for around 12.00 though.
good luck
If swaddling works and you want to continue I would try the Miracle Blanket. It is a large swaddle that wraps multiple times around the baby. I don't know many babies that can break out of it (some moms even call it the "baby straightjacket" :)
Here is a link: www.miracleblanket.com
We used it until our little girl was about 8 months old. If that doesn't work then maybe she is telling you that she doesn't want to be swaddled any more. You may have to endure some sleepless nights until she gets used to sleeping without being swaddled.
She may be ready to stop swaddling, but not cold turkey. Try swaddling her as tight as you can with 1 arm out. Then two. Hopefully if she has a little more mobility she won't break the whole thing. She is probably not sleeping becasue she is learning so much so fast that she wants to have time to try out her new skills! This is very normal and will pass. Just because she is drooling and chewing does not mean that she is teething. She could just be interested in new things, and mouthing things is the way babies learn. My daughter was a faucet at that age and still has no sign of teeth.
I don't know how big you daughter is, but Kiddopotomus makes a waddling sleeper that fastens shut. You could try one of those.
Give her EXTRA tummy time all day to help her feel like she doesn't need to practice her developing skills so much when it is time for bed. Other than that.....brew lots of coffee and wait it out.
My daughter is now 8+ mos. and sleeps from 6:15ish to 5:15ish (I know that's really early, but nothing makes her sleep later :() so I relish is the 11 hours I get with her snoozing! And she doesn't need to be swaddled anymore!
PS Don't let her cry it out....No cry sleep Solution would be a good resource
GL
~*Manige*~
I think she is getting out of the swaddling stage already. She may be needing more food, and maybe try giving her a "blanky" or favorite toy to go to sleep with. I think too, that letting her cry it out again wouldn't hurt either. Good luck.
I have no experience so with a grain of salt... I've heard the miracle blanket is good for houdini types.
It is time to stop swaddling! Keep up the breastfeeding, don't worry about the percentages, as long as she is growing steadily she's fine! She needs to move more now and swaddling is oo confining! A 6 month old should definately be sleeping through the night, at least 6-7 hours for a breastfed baby. Mine would wake early, maybe 6 or so, nurse and then sleep for a while longer( usually with me for an hour or so). You are doing great mom!
E.,
My son is only 4 months, but we kicked the swaddling habbit this last month. He broke the swaddle too and really was restisting it when we did it for him. He like yours is active and has been swaddled since about 6 weeks. I have him in footie PJ's. I just went cold turkey, which was hard, but I felt he was telling me he was ready! They say when your child hits a milestone, sometimes they have trouble sleeping because that is all they want to do and maybe your little one is on the brink of crawling!
Good Luck!
Blanket sleepers are great!
