De-Swaddled

So the time has come to kiss the Miracle Blanket goodbye. For those of you not familiar with the Miracle Blanket, it's what we call the super swaddle. (http://www.miracleblanket.com/)

Uncle Doc (the doctor that delivered Abby) and his family gave it to Abby when she was 19 days old. She went from sleeping about an hour at a time to 4 hours just in the first night!! The MB motto is "the gift of sleep" and they aren't joking!! I'm like the MB cheerleader now...everyone I know that's pregnant or just had a baby is getting one from me!

Anyway, Abby loves the MB. She can be screaming bloody murder and you wrap her up in it and she's sound asleep in less than 5 minutes. It makes her feel all warm and cozy and it has this extra flap for her tummy that is especially good for refluxers. So she's in heaven. And we've been enjoying 10-12 hours of sleep for weeks now.

So you can imagine our horror when Abby tried to roll over in it. There's no way she can stay in the MB if she's rolling. I'm too scared she'll get stuck faceplanted in the bed...not good. And besides, she was getting out of it. Something we never even thought was in the realm of possibility. She'd have to be Houdini to get out of the Super Swaddle!!!

Well, meet little Houdini...

Because she's out. And she has no idea what to do with herself now that's she's out there. Arms flailing and legs going everywhere. Knocking her paci out and bopping herself upside the head...

It's a real comedy show actually...except for the part of no sleeping...

And now that she's rolling, she rolls herself over onto her tummy and doesn't know what to do. So every hour almost on Saturday night she was up whimpering b/c she was on her tummy and didn't know what to do next. (She refuses to lay her head down while on her tummy...strange huh?)

So we have had to go cold turkey from the swaddle. We just "sucked it up" as Nonnie likes to say and went for it. And it was not fun. Two nights of sticking the paci in and night feedings that we had long kissed goodbye. We moved her back in our room in the Pack-N-Play to eliminate some of the time spent walking from room to room.

And the conversations that Greg and I had about this were really strange...they are hilarious now so I'll share them. Plus I think it'll be good for Abby to read these one day and see just what calamities she caused simply by learning to roll over.

Here are some of the terms Greg and I have now coined in our efforts to de-swaddle our kid:

• Super swaddle/full swaddle -- everything swaddled, arms, legs. "Ab-burrito" (we'd post a picture but some people would think Abby in the swaddle is a little bit like child abuse. Just remember that she loves it, people!)
• Half swaddle -- arms swaddled, legs out
• Quarter swaddle -- one arm in, one arm and legs out
• Bottom swaddle -- both arms out but lower half of body swaddled..keeps tummy nice and cozy and less chance of spit up

You can imagine our conversations...And I'm not kidding.

They went something like this:

Greg: So I think we should quarter swaddle.
Jamie: No I think we should half swaddle for the first part of the night and quarter swaddle after first feeding.
Greg: Ok but what about a bottom swaddle?? Could that be an option??

Imagine this conversation going on as Abby lays on the bed, on top of the MB, babbling away. She had her own ideas but too bad, we can't understand you kid so you don't get a say.

In the end we opted for the bottom swaddle in a sleep sack.

And we're finally getting some sleep :)

Little Miss Innocent