SLEEP CHALLENGE: How do you get a baby to sleep unwrapped?

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SleepDummy — Baby Holly playing with her pacifier

MONTH FIVE:

What’s been happening this month? More sleep deprivation. Not even a touring Keith Richards lives this hard.

Baby Holly is now a full-on roller – front and back. This means the whole wrapping the arms thing has to go, in-line with the SIDS guidelines. The fact she only sleeps a maximum of three hours at a time has made me reluctant to start. But I bit the bullet and began this week.

The outcome? I went straight back to wrapping. If I unwrapped just one arm, she’d spend the whole time pulling her dummy out, then grizzle because she couldn’t put it back in again. After standing by her cot and holding her hand for quite a while, I ended up feeling like someone was stabbing me in the back with a sharp knife and no, Julia Gillard was nowhere in sight. Then Holly looked up and laughed at me. Nice! Little rotter ….

You may be wondering what we did with Princess Ella at the same time. Well, due to the fact she was such a small baby, we somehow got away with wrapping her until she was eight months old. By that time, putting the dummy in and out of her mouth was a cinch.

SOLUTION: No idea. Keep her wrapped, maybe? How did you go about unwrapping your baby for sleep? Any tips or tricks for me?

Next in the series is: Month Six: Guest Post A mother’s heartache. Read all posts from the Sleep Challenge.

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Comments

11 responses to “SLEEP CHALLENGE: How do you get a baby to sleep unwrapped?”

March 14, 2011

Sonja

the only thing that works in our house is getting daddy to put baby to sleep. If i try she see’s me and thinks either ‘play time’, or ‘feed time’ but the idea of daddy being at her cot isn’t as exciting and she quickly goes back to sleep 🙂 the hard part is that then she associates only daddy with sleep, so daytime naps quickly become cranky time! best of luck, and ill keep my eye on here to see what tips other mums come up with x

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1. March 14, 2011
  
  Kel
  
  Thanks Sonja. Getting dad to take over sounds like a GREAT idea!! LOL!! Good luck with your little one too! 🙂
  
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March 14, 2011

Ash

I can’t remember! I think we tried a sleeping bag for a while, but it doesn’t do much for those wriggly arms! That’s such a gorgeous pic!

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1. March 14, 2011
  
  Kel
  
  Thanks Ash. We might have to try with the sleeping bag, maybe. The Grobags were our saviour with Ella once she was sleeping with arms out. 🙂
  
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March 14, 2011

feli

Hey Kel,

I think we are having the same problems. I tried this method last week. Seems to be working for me.

I have her in one of those gro bags with arms out. then i kinda wrap a muslin wrap over the top to keep her arms out just enough to get her to sleep and so that she can’t use her hands to get her dummy.

Seems to be working for us. she went to bed straight away this week i am hoping that would fix it.

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1. March 14, 2011
  
  Kel
  
  Wow, thanks Feli. Will give it a try. I’ll let you know how we go! 🙂
  
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March 21, 2011

Rebekah

Hi! I remember this! We got some blankets called “WRAP ME UP”… He was able to move a bit, so less danger (actually, after a little while, he was quite the little mobile one!!), but he was a jerker and this kept him from hitting himself and waking up. It was a great in-between solution for us!! Good luck! 🙂

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1. March 21, 2011
  
  Kel
  
  Oh Rebekah, thank you, thank you, thank you! You’ve actually just reminded me that we bought a Wrap Me Up about two months ago, but had no luck with it. I wonder if maybe she was too young for it then. We might pull it out and try again (fingers crossed it stills fits!). I’ll let you know how we go. 🙂
  
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March 21, 2011

Rebekah

Can’t wait to hear how it is!!

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May 19, 2011

Danielle

Hi we are going through this at the moment with dd who is five and a half months. Just trying sleeping bag out tonight for the first time. Fingers crossed. She is a twleve hour or more sleeper with the swaddle me so let’s hope she stays this way. With ds we used old fashioned wrap and just did one arm at a time and then just wrapped legs. We actually fully wrapped him way beyond five months and used a thing called a safe t sleep. It’s a device that velcros around the bed and then around the baby. Then they cannot
roll over…also meant to help baby sleep. It’s also great for when a baby can stand. Our dd has been rolling both ways since 11 weeks so if this bag doesn’t work I will fish the safe t sleep out of the cupboard.

be fishing the saftey sleep out of the cupboard.

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1. May 22, 2011
  
  Kel
  
  Oh, you lucky thing, Danielle. How I would love a 12-hour sleeper. Eventually, the sleeping bag worked for us with Baby Holly (first, wrapping just one arm and now not wrapping at all), but her sleeps still aren’t fantastic (we’ve now hit 7 1/2 months).
  I like the sound of the safe t sleep. I might look into that. She is now at the stage where she’s trying to learn to crawl, so constantly wants to roll over in bed and “practice”. Thanks for sharing.
  
  Reply