Monday, August 22, 2011

Its a Wrap!

Swaddleme
Wrapping or swaddling has been a major part of my life through this last year!  And I am a massive advocate of swaddling babies, it helps them feel secure and safe, though I barely wrapped Callum and Jack, but the twins just love it, or they did!  Maybe its because they were so very squashed in the womb that they liked that feeling of being firmly wrapped up, but from day 1 we had them in a "Swaddleme" wrap and they loved it.  The only problem with it is the bloody velcro - it is just so noisy, especially the piece that attaches to the lower foot pocket!  Other than that it works really well, as long as the baby is big enough to fill it out so that you can get the wrap nice and firm.  We had the smaller ones and upgraded to the larger ones as they were still working well for us, unless the boys got worked up and they could break out.  When breastfeeding in the night though, I found a wrap to be a total pain!!  Obviously you have to unwrap them to get them close enough to feed and then re-wrap after the feed without disturbing them and with the velcro issue, this wasn't easy!

Wrap me up
So at around 4 mths I tried them in the "Wrap Me Up" swaddle.  This is a very strange looking wrap where the arms are wrapped by the baby's head, which is apparently a baby's most natural position and allows them to get to their hands.  The problem being though that it does nothing for the startle reflex and doesn't help them feel the security they would feel in a more traditional wrap.  They were the biggest waste of money as the twins didn't use them for long.  On a plus though I didn't need to unwrap them to feed in the night!


Ergo Swaddle
Following that I tried the "Ergo Swaddle" which is like a sleeping bag without arms, so their arms go inside the bag but are free to move around.  I thought the boys would like this one as they were always trying to get their arms out of the wrap so I thought maybe they just liked to move them, but I found that they just tried to get their hands to their faces and in doing so pulled  the wrap's material up to their mouth.  This redeemed itself by being able to convert to a summer sleeping bag as it has press studs on the arm holes, so we did get some use out it in the end, just not as a wrap we had hoped for initially!

For newborns and smaller babies I have heard a lot of good things about the "Miracle Wrap" and I would have tried that at the time if it was made in a bigger size.

So I continued wrapping on and off until about 6 mths or so, then didn't try again until they were 7 mths, just to try and help with their day sleeps.  By now they had outgrown all wraps so I decided to try a very large traditional wrap, in other words, a cot sheet, wrapping their arms and legs up firmly like you would a newborn.  And you know what?  It worked!  They both went from 45 mins sleep twice a day to around 1 1/2 hrs twice a day!  It was remarkable!  That is how I have been able to get them into a sleep pattern through the day because before I wrapped them, I just couldn't get them to sleep.  They don't like it at night though for some reason.  Maybe because Harry likes to feel his comforter and fiddle with his dummy or because Connor likes to side sleep and can't move in the wrap, or maybe because they are so busy through the day and it just helps to calm them, I don't know for sure.

I made the wraps myself in the end as the cot sheets were making them a bit too hot and had no stretch to them.  So I took myself down to Spotlight and without trying to look too out of my comfort zone in this strange environment or too confused about how to purchase material, I managed to buy 2 metres of stretch cotton jersey.  It is 140cm in width, but had to be very wide to get a firm wrap, though I didn't want a lot of loose material around their feet as I had stopped wrapping their legs, so I cut each wrap at 1 metre.  And that was it!  With that material it doesn't fray, just folds in at the edges, so my wraps were made and at a fraction of the cost of buying "proper" baby wraps!  So easy and a lot more difficult for them to break out of than the fitted wraps.

At 9 months the boys are now rarely being wrapped, just through the day if they get overtired or on cooler nights I wrap them over their sleeping bags with their arms out, which they seem to quite like.  So for now it seems...  its a wrap!!





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