Hi. I’m Dana. Welcome to this week’s video. Today I want to talk about the swaddle, how to use it, and when to stop. I found the swaddle very useful. All three of my babies loved to be swaddled. We used to call it little baby burritos. We’d wrap them up and they looked so adorable. It tended to calm them down. Now the whole reason for swaddling in the first place is to remind the newborn how it was in the womb. You have to think about a newborn there are a lot of big changes that happen when they enter this world, and they are not used to having an open environment around them. Wrapping them properly helps keep them safe, gives them a little reminder of what happened in the womb, and allows most babies to sit down.

Now there has been some talk of late about safety around the swaddle. You want to look at some of the ways you should avoid them. One of the biggest concerns is that it will overheat your baby if they are swaddled for too long and too tightly. A good rule of thumb would be, you know what, maybe we should take a nap, or use it for naps that are more difficult than others. Also, you want your baby to have the habit of learning to sleep when he is not wrapped tightly because he can be a supporter.

I’ve had a lot of clients come to me with an eight, ten month old baby and they show me this giant that they’re getting a blanket that they’ve made for this little guy. The problem is that the child can chase the screen. It doesn’t matter how tightly you wrap it or what kind of magic blanket you’ve been using to keep your baby in, they won’t. It’s like they’re developing a love/hate relationship with the swaddle. They feel like they need to be snuggled tightly to sleep, but they are also very motivated to move and explore and see how they can use their legs, so they kick. “I’m not swaddled anymore.” That usually stimulates a wake up. They’re crying. Now you need to come back in and re-swaddle.

My rule of thumb for using a swaddle is to start off at about the tenth week. This can be slow at this point because we don’t have a negative or positive trend. Just try leaving one arm out. First nap of the day is usually the best nap. That can be a good place to start trying to let the child discover this little by little without the screen. One arm pulls out, then after a week or so, you drop both arms and just roll from the hips down. Pambuyo pa sabata la izi, mumangopita kukasiya nthawi ya swaddle.

Now, a good alternative is something called Zipadee Zip. You might have seen it. It’s a small sleeping bag that looks like it has arms. Si ufulu wonse, koma ndi wochuluka kuposa chinsalu. This may be a good next step if you are trying to solve the swaddle prop problem.

Now, some newborns don’t like the swaddle. I don’t know what it looks like, but I imagine they cry and become very sad and sad when they are in it. If they don’t like it, then don’t use it. I mean, that’s just common sense. Sitikakamizika kukakamiza mwana kuti alowe m’malo ngati sakusangalala. Sometimes it does take a time or two. Don’t just try once, think your child doesn’t like it, and give up. Try it a few times before you make that call. I find that it helps baby sleep a little longer than they would otherwise. That’s because the baby suddenly pulls out its arms. That will wake them. So it’s a little difficult for him to go back to sleep. They often do it several times in the process of sleeping. Having your arms folded or down can prevent this and prevent them from doing so and promote longer sleep.