6 thoughts on “Poll Results: Did you/do you swaddle your baby?”

  1. Hello there…wanted to share some info and ask a question…First of all – your blog is amazing! a lifesaver to a second time mum who just doesnt remember anything anymore! 🙁 I have a 20 month old who i started to use Babywise cyces (eat – awake- sleep) with at 5 weeks – I was lucky enough in that at 8 weeks she was sleeping 12-13 hours a night!!! I’m now on baby number 2 and started Babywise-ing him at the 2 week mark (he was in the hospital for a bit – like my first – for the first week and they actually keep the babies on a 3-4 hour cycle and funnily enough tell mothers to go on demand when they go home!)….besides the point!So, we did CIO with my daughter for naps and bedtime at 6 weeks (respecting awake time etc.). Once i started this i NEVER rocked to sleep again. Now with my son, i started at 3 weeks….here’s the question – sometimes at night (only with my husband) – he fusses on and off for 15-30 mins (not non-stop). My husband was rocking him back to sleep (against my wishes at this 3/4 am wakeup) but as of last night (baby is now 1 month) I told him that has to stop. My “rule” is that I would go in if there was 10 mins of non-stop crying…(10 mins as of 1 month – it was 5 mins from 3 weeks – 1 month)…Is this ok for the baby?Also, during the day he fusses for a few minutes before a nap – sometimes he works his way up to a giant BAD wail and then almost immediately drops off to sleep – any advice to stop this? Please advise..so confused if i am doing the right thing…His schedule is as follows at 1 month:7am eat10am eat1pm eat4pm eat6.30pm – start eating/bath/finish and in bed by 7/715pm. He wakes anywhere from 10-11pm and then again from 2.30 – 3.30am to eat.Let me know if you have any advice. Thanks and thanks again for sharing your tips/knowledge and experience with us!KB

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  2. Thanks! I am glad you like the blog.As far as CIO at night, do you mean crying after a feeding, or crying when waking? I would say 10 minutes is definitely fine (if you feel fine with it) for a baby your age who has just been fed. If he is waking and you are having him CIO before feeding first, I would say that isn’t what you want to do yet. I would give that another month at least before trying that.Time will help him to move past the crying before naptime. It usually takes about 8 weeks of consistency before they stop crying for nap (though some will stop faster and some need to cry for a few minutes well past a year).At his age, you want 7-8 feedings in a 24 hour period, and it looks like you are having 6. I would try to add a feeding around 9:30 or 10 PM to get that extra feeding in (this feeding is often referred to as the dreamfeed).Good luck!

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  3. thanks so much for getting back to me…I should have mentioned that I do feed him at the 10-11 pm mark and the 2-3 mark (basically i feed him whenever he wakes up in the middle of the night – which is those 2 times)…Thanks for the 10 min CIO advice – thats what we are doing right now AFTER we have fed him in the middle of the night. We feed, diaper, finish feed, burp and then put him down after whether he is awake or asleep. He’s usually in and out of it so he almost always cries for 2-5 mins at the 2-3am feeding. so he’s on 7 feedings a day but i still find that i have to wake him up to feed during the day – is that normal at 5 weeks. I wake him up, he eats and then wants to go right back to sleep during the day – at times only 45 mins of awake time. Is that to be expected. I feel like i’ve forgotten everything from my first child!Thanks again!KB

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  4. First, I want to thank you for all the help you provide us 1st time mom’s. I’m amazed at how you find the time to answer so many comments!I was finally able to get my husband to work with me on CIO. I finally started seeing a consistent shortened cry before naps in my 5 weeks old (and no crying before his morning nap). This lasted about a week and it seems he’s backtracking a little. I read your blog about baby’s progress cycling and am hoping and praying he cycles back towards progress. He seems to consistently wake 20-30 minutes after sleeping (maybe he can’t seem to make it through the deep sleep transition??). Sometimes he’ll cry himself back to sleep, other times he won’t. I’ve tried your swing idea, and at times that works. My question, when he won’t go back to sleep, what do I do with our schedule?? Feeding him right away would mean only 1.5 hours between feeding, and reversing the order of waketime/feeding tends to just cause problems for his next nap. Is there anything I can do to help him make that transition? (he’s swaddled but not his arms–he pulls them out no matter how tight the swaddle)Also, he still struggles with sleeping at night. It’s hit and miss, after nursing he’ll be sound asleep and as soon as I lay him down, he’s wide awake. He’ll either cry with no end or lay there completely awake for an hour and then start crying with no end. Typically the only way of getting him back to sleep is to nurse again and hope he sleeps (but I know this is not a good practice!). Any suggestions? (we have not been doing CIO at night dur to living in such close proximity to neighbors)Thanks so much!!

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  5. Yes, your wake times for that age are totally normal. Expect 45 min-1 hour right now, and only 1 hour for quite a while. I had to wake my daughter to eat at that age, and actually still do at 13 months. If he stays that way, you will be very happy 🙂

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  6. Sorry, my previous comment was to KB :)Becca, Thanks for the thanks! Time gets easier to manage as you get used to being a mom and juggling it all :)I am glad your husband partnered up with you on CIO–it is much easier with a friend 🙂 You son will get better. Kaitlyn was always really good at falling asleep by herself. Her first session of CIO at one week had NO crying at all. But she would have her bad days. First, when he wakes early I just want to reiterate making sure he isn’t hungry. If he is waking from hunger, he will continue to wake early until those hunger needs are met. If they are met right away, he will quickly move back to sleeping well.Part of it is just going to be him learning how to fall back asleep on his own. That will come with time. If he absolutely won’t go back to sleep after waking early, then at that age I think I would just feed him and continue on with the cycle. Your day will get off, but if he won’t sleep, you don’t want him to be too tired to sleep well when the next nap comes around.As his self-soothing gets better, he should get better about falling asleep at night. I would make sure he is getting a full feeding when you feed him at night, which will mean you have to keep him awake–a hard thing to do. Do remember that babies are smart, and if you continue to nurse him to sleep, he might decide that is preferable to doing it on his own. Know that the cry of a 5 week old is significantly weaker in volume than that of a 5 month old, so I would caution that you watch it and not let it get too far. He will be more likely to wake the neighbors then than now.

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